Background Massachusetts is a small state, but it has 351 cities and towns. The large number of jurisdictions grants the state its incredible civic diversity, ranging from rural villages to small towns, to beach towns, to metropolises. But the multiplicity of jurisdictions also results in an extremely tricky coordination problem: Read more
Data analysts working in an ever-growing number of fields have access to big datasets. But the massive quantity of observations doesn’t guarantee analysts can understand the important structures of the data. The datasets might have many variables, or dimensions, that are relevant to the analysis. As a result, analysts quickly Read more
Since 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released consumer complaints against financial corporations. This is a valuable source of information about the problems Americans face in accessing credit, savings, investments. There are limitations to the data: the people who submit complaints often write them in the heat of anger Read more
In October of 2020, the City of New Orleans considered an ordinance that would required affordable housing in its core districts, including the French Quarter. To assess the economic effects of this reform, both on affordable housing in the city and also on the city’s fiscal outlook, I took a Read more
Making cross-cutting comparisons of city revenues and expenditures can be complicated. Every person in the United States lives under overlapping boundaries of local governments, all of which have the ability to spend money and many of which have the ability to tax. For example, I used to live in Chelsea, Read more
In 2016, Donald Trump rode a perfect wave of anti-Obama sentiment and economic disenfranchisement to the greatest upset victory in American Presidential history. That’s a commonly held narrative about the 2016 election. But does the data back it up? I conducted a number of statistical tests and mapping exercises to Read more
Shiny App URL: https://jcinterrante.shinyapps.io/urban_neglect_shiny_app/