The Long Island Index, with the tagline “good information, presented in a neutral manner, can move policy,” is profiled in a story today in the New York Times. The site has recently been updated with details on downtown redevelopment potential, and it’s this focus that’s highlighted in the story.
“How the area can grow, what it will take to be economically viable going forward, as well as how much and what type of new development is possible and preferable, is the focus of the 2010 Long Island Index released last week. The study and an accompanying interactive map examined 156 places, including 111 classified as downtowns.”
The Long Island Index presents land use patterns with detailed population and housing statistics, education, public spaces, jobs, housing, recreational faciliites, educational data, transportation and more. The mapping tool lets users choose which elements they want to see and provides them with a means to do their own spatial analysis.
This tool is on the forefront of GeoDesign, with its focus on molding the future of the region through participatory and transparent presentation of the complex web of competing interests that are part of the planning process. The tool helps put individual city plans into the larger regional context, and provides all citizens, planners and policy makers with a centralized place to go for data to inform discussions.
