This note discusses 'internet based neighbourhood information systems' (IBNIS).

It covers -

• introduction - the shape and evolution of IBNIS
• categorisation and markets - the shape of services and who uses them
• the IBNIS industry - government, business and community services
• examples - selected IBNIS
• issues - privacy, divides and other concerns
• studies - key writings

It supplements discussion elsewhere on this site regarding surveillance, geospatial privacy and marketing.

     introduction

As the name suggests, internet based neighbourhood information systems provide a panoptic sort that identifies characteristics such as -

• age and gender
• ethnicity and affinity
• income, health and educational attainment
• consumption patterns (eg car ownership)
• crime (including neighbourhood statistics and offender registers)
• infrastructure (eg presence of schools and hospitals, area of parks or residential space per capita)
• air and other pollution

on a neighbourhood by neighbourhood basis.

Although 'neighbourhood' is often embodied in a postcode or zipcode, particular data collections may be more granular, eg on a street by street basis.

They are an extension of traditional geodemographic data sets maintained by government, industry (in particular by commercial data trading and consumer credit reporting services such as Experian and Acxiom) and academic bodies since at least the 1750s. They are typically richer than function-specific services such as Australia's online National Public Toilet Map site. They typically feature searching using one or more attributes

IBNIS are significant because a large range of data sets may be integrated with aerial/satellite photographs and maps, with users having access over the net - on a free or restricted basis - or over an intranet.

They may be tied to surveillance technologies, may be used (as with traditional geocoding) by marketers to target or exclude particular audiences, or may embody community social networks.

One UK service thus claims

No matter where you are in the UK, you can simply enter your postcode and ask a question of your neighbours, or help out someone else with a local enquiry. While there are other portals that offer similar local information, they're usually restricted by certain boundaries. ... Whether you're looking for a restaurant recommendation in your local area, or if you've just moved to a new neighbourhood and want some information about local schools or services, there's bound to be someone out there with an answer for you.

In Australia the contentious 'community' 2LD was put aside by auDA for 'community portals'.

     categorisation and markets

It is possible to differentiate three basic IBNIS categories -

• government/academic services providing data on neighbourhoods for policymakers and researchers working at a national, regional or local level. Such services are typically used in infrastructure and social program planning. Some or all content may be provided to business and the wider community. That data is generally drawn from public sector sources; the services typically do not feature explicit advertising although ads may appear as corporate sponsorship.
• commercial sites offering neighbourhood information - particularly property and offender data, along with notices about the activity of not-for-profit bodies - to attract advertising relating to specific venues/locales and overall sponsorship. Such services are typically run by real estate agents or local newspapers; they are increasingly competing with search engines or portals such as Google and Yahoo!
• 'community portals' or 'social software sites' operated by community organisations, charities and political groups with detailed neighbourhood information as a resource for community development work, urban regeneration, environmental improvement or campaigning.

Some observers have argued that there is a fourth category - services that serve the marketing industry rather than individual consumers, offering geo-demographic data that can be used to target selected consumers. A growing number are pursuing the market for their 'segmentation' services among consumers.

How many neighbourhood services are there and what are the demographics of their users? There is no large scale data about the existence of services or a comprehensive evaluation. It appears that consumer use of services is uneven, reflecting the nature of particular sites (real estate sites typically get lower revisitation when property turnover is low; offender registers attract a particular demographic), their newness and marketing.

     the IBNIS industry

What does the industry look like? The absence of comprehensive data means that answer is uncertain.

Major features include -

• government agencies that have constructed community sites in response to perceived need or policy frameworks such as the National Strategy Transformation Agenda for Local Authorities in England or through mandates for providing statistical and other data (eg the UK National Statistics office)
• business that specialise in 'IBNIS-in-a-box' or bespoke site construction for such clients
• realtors who have established services in competition with paid/free newspapers
• commercial social networking businesses
• enthusiasts who have sought to establish not-for-profit community portals, typically without extensive interactivity

     examples

Examples of IBNIS include -

• UK Neighbourhood Statistics | here
• upmystreet.co.uk | here
• scorecard.org | here
• homecheck.co.uk | here
• Cairns Risk Mapping | here
• craptowns.com | here
• Floodtrack | here
• chavtowns.co.uk | here
• OnMyBlock.ca | here
• findyourspot.com | here
• bestplaces.net | here
• connectingneighbours.com | here
• houseandhome.msn.com | here

     issues

Neighbourhood information systems were initially hailed as providing "grass-roots portals for community organisations and small businesses" and for providing public access to information that had hitherto only been available to clients of commercial profiling services or staff of government agencies.

More recently critics have expressed concern that IBNIS will result in discrimination rather than social cohesion, whether against particular locations against individuals (eg areas such as Mt Druitt in NSW, addresses associated with an entry on an offender register or an individual offender).

The 2005 UK Neighbourhoods on the Net report was for example greeted with claims that "internet sites identifying the best places to live may be deepening the country's social divide" and that

the gap between the haves and have-nots may soon become more obvious because of information websites that allow househunters to select their ideal neighbourhoods. As Internet-based Neighbourhood Information Systems (IBNIS) allow buyers to identify areas with the best schools or lowest crime rate, society is set to become more segregated. Using IBNIS such as www.upmystreet.co.uk, www.homecheck.co.uk, www.statistics.gov.uk and even www.chavtowns.co.uk the better off will be able to move into neighbourhoods populated by the kind of people that they would most want to invite round for a drink.

It seems only a matter of time before the kind of powerful neighbourhood search sites available in the United States start to reinforce the divide between the more and less prosperous locations in the UK. This is potentially worrying. ... The technology available cannot only sort people according to basic data such as their incomes, but also according to individual tastes, consumer preferences, lifestyle habits and so on.

Until recently these 'segmentation' processes have been largely invisible to the public — but with the emergence of IBNIS it’s entirely possible people will start using them to sort themselves out into neighbourhoods where their neighbours are less diverse and more like themselves.

That is consistent with concerns articulated by Joseph Turow and Cass Sunstein about the close nature of many online communities and microcasting to audiences of one.

One critic commented that geospatial technologies

make it much easier to produce spatial categorizations, so that the portion of human subjects dwelling in databases becomes
increasingly determinate: you become where you live.

We have commented elsewhere on this site that geolocation tools can be used to determine people by where they have been (and are going) rather than merely by where they live or by what they consume.

Neighbourhoods on the Net continued that

While no one would want to prevent public access to neighbourhood information, we should recognise the potential implications for disadvantaged neighbourhoods and the people who live in them. At a minimum it would be sensible to insist that IBNIS websites specify their sources and make it clear how their information was compiled. We also recommend that local people are given opportunities to challenge the way their neighbourhoods are being portrayed, if necessary.

In practice it is difficult to see how what challenges would be effective.

More broadly, it is unclear whether online profiling of neighbourhoods is that much more persuasive than the 'soft networks' used by many people - word of mouth from friends and contacts - and personal visits. Some consumers, of course, are attracted by diversity or driven by factors such availability of services and accommodation costs rather than ethnic/other homogeneity.

     studies

For an introduction to technologies and issues see Mark Monmonier's Spying with Maps: Surveillance Technologies and the Future of Privacy (Chicago: Uni of Chicago Press 2002), George Elmer's Profiling machines: Mapping the personal information economy (Cambridge: MIT Press 2004), the 2005 Neighbourhoods on the Net: The nature and impact of internet-based neighbourhood information systems (PDF) report by Roger Burrows, Nick Ellison & Brian Woods and 'Internet-based Neighbourhood Information Systems: A Comparative Analysis' by Krouk, Pitkin & Richman in Community Informatics: Enabling Communities with Information and Communication Technologies (Hershey: Idea 2000) edited by Michael Gurstein.

For geodemographics and geocoding see in particular Michael Curry's intelligent Digital places: Living with Geographic Information Technologies (London: Routledge 1998). For us it is more impressive than Michael Weiss' The Clustering of America: How We Live, What We Buy, and What It All Means about Who We Are (New York: Harper & Row 1989) and The Clustered World (Boston: Little Brown 2000).

Geospatial Information System technologies and applications are discussed in Nicholas Chrisman's Exploring Geographic Information Systems (New York: Wiley 1997) and Geographical Information Systems: Principles, Techniques, Applications & Management (New York: Wiley 1999) edited by Paul Longley, Michael Goodchild, David Maguire & David Rhind.

For privacy, intellectual property and other concerns see Ground Truth: The Social Implications of Geographic Information Systems (New York: Guilford 1997) edited by John Pickles, Geographic Information Systems: Socioeconomic Applications (London: Routledge 1996) by David Martin, Sharing Geographic Information Systems (New Brunswick: Center for Urban Policy Research 1995) edited by Harlan Onsrud, Surveillance & social sorting: Privacy, risk and digital discrimination (London: Routledge 2003) by David Lyon and the 1996 paper GIS & Society: The Social Implications of How People, Space and Environment Are Represented in GIS (PDF) by Trevor Harris & Daniel Weiner.

 

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