The City Insider application uses data from the Chattanooga Public Library's Open Data Portal and puts it in an interactive map. On the map, users can see the number of crime incidents and non-emergency municipal calls, as well as locations for parks and public schools all over the city.
Mayor Andy Berke called City Insider "another valuable tool for citizens and neighborhoods as we work together to make Chattanooga a better place for everyone."
The map can be set to show neighborhood associations or city council districts. The application also features a heat map that shows high-crime-rate areas, and users can select filters for which crimes they want to see. A specific address also can be searched, and the number of incidents in a specified radius shown. The radius can be expanded up to 10 miles.
Users can also select a specific date range for the data they want to see. Now, data for police incidents dates back to 2015, and non-emergency municipal calls date back to 2016. Once a date range has been selected, the application further breaks down the data by hourly statistics, which can be selected as a filter to view all the crime reported at a specific time.
Each type of crime has an icon, and users can click on the icon to see more details about the incident, such as the exact address, date, incident number and status.
Crimes recorded range from murder to vandalism of property, but Melinda Harris, open data specialist for the city, said not all recorded incidents are for crimes that actually have been committed. The data includes all 911 calls to report a crime, whether the crime was found to be true or not.
Harris said anyone who wants specific statistical information about committed crimes should contact the police department's crime analyst unit.
"The City Insider will be an asset to individuals and neighborhood associations in Chattanooga who want info about crime, 311 reports, etc." Gwenda Gregory of the Lake Hills Neighborhood Association said in a news release from the mayor's office. "Questions that are often asked at neighborhood association meetings can be answered quickly and accurately using this web page. Being able to print this data is a plus."
More datasets will be added to the application in the future, according to the news release.
"Every day Chattanooga is becoming more known as a place for innovation, and in city government we are looking for innovative ways to deliver services to our citizens," City Council Chairman Jerry Mitchell said.
©2017 the Chattanooga Times/Free Press (Chattanooga, Tenn.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
