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September 4, 2019

Big Brother is watching — in a good way (maybe)

PHOTO | New Haven Biz  IT specialist Herrera shows off the city’s award-winning G.I.S. mapping technology Tuesday at City Hall.
By Michael C. Bingham

When your car is in a fender-bender, the city knows. When your neighbor calls the cops in a domestic dispute, the city knows. When your landlord is late paying his taxes, the city knows.

And now you can, too.

On Tuesday Mayor Toni N. Harp, Controller Daryl Jones and IT specialist Alfredo Herrera gave reporters a special demonstration of the city’s deployment of G.I.S. mapping technology, which enables city workers to respond to a wide spectrum of conditions and events from an accidental poisoning to an unrepaired pothole.

It can even tell you where is the closest place in Fair Haven Heights to pick up a bottle of a particular sassy new California chardonnay.

The technology, Herrera explained, is a key tool in streamlining operations across many city operations, from education to emergency services. City officials also use mapping data to inform decisions in matters ranging from land use/zoning to engineering and public-safety strategies.

“Cities sit on troves of data,” Jones noted. “Now we have gotten to the point where we can actually use that data” to solve problems and make more informed decisions.

The results serve to benefit residents, property owners and businesses citywide, Herrera said. “The amount of information is frankly staggering,” he added.

One of the data sets even charts Internet usage on computers and cellphones by neighborhood (downtown and East Rock are the highest; the Hill and Newhallville the lowest). Access to such information “can be useful in helping to close the digital divide” between wealthier and poorer neighborhoods, Jones noted.

Deployment of the G.I.S. mapping tools began as part of the city’s neighborhood “sweeps” initiative, begun in 2017 to help make neighborhoods safer and more liveable.

Much — but not all — of the G.I.S.-collected data is available to the public through a portal on the Mayor’s Page of the city’s website https://mayor.newhavenct.gov. It combines information assembled by police and fire officials, housing inspectors and other city officials.

The G.I.S. technology places New Haven in the vanguard of municipalities nationwide in deploying sophisticated mapping tools to support service-providers. As a result New Haven became a 2019 recipient of the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) Special Achievement in G.I.S. award. 

“This award puts New Haven front and center on the map of breakthrough innovation to the benefit of city residents, property owners, and businesses — and the city government that’s here to provide services for them,” said Harp.

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