McCourt School of Public Policy
McCourt School of Public Policy

Public Policy Data Sets and Resources

Below is a list of data sets used by DSPP students in recent projects. Below that are additional data sets and resources for D.C.-specific data.

Global Terrorism DatabaseNational Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START)https://www.kaggle.com/START-UMD/gtd/data
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act DataConsumer Financial Protection Bureauhttps://ffiec.cfpb.gov/data-browser
The China Health and Retirement Survey (CHARLS)National School of Development, Peking Universityhttps://www.nia.nih.gov/research/resource/china-health-and-retirement-survey-charls
FBI Crime Data ExplorerUS Federal Bureau of Investigationshttps://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/downloads-and-docs
National Financial Well-Being SurveyConsumer Financial Protection Bureauhttps://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/financial-well-being-survey-data/
National Nonprofit Research DatabaseUrban Institute National Center for Charitable Statisticshttps://nccs-data.urban.org/index.php
Student Performance Data (Student body, funding levels, and outcomes)Massachusetts Department of Educationhttps://www.kaggle.com/ndalziel/massachusetts-public-schools-data
Education Data ExplorerThe Urban Institutehttps://educationdata.urban.org/data-explorer/explorer
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data SystemNational Center for Education Statisticshttps://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data
2011 NYC School SurveyNew York State Department of Educationhttps://data.cityofnewyork.us/Education/2011-NYC-School-Survey/mnz3-dyi8
2010-2011 NYC School Progress ReportNew York State Department of Educationhttps://data.cityofnewyork.us/Education/2010-2011-School-Progress-Reports-All-Schools/yig9-9zum
Local Area Unemployment StatisticsBureau of Labor Statisticshttps://www.bls.gov/lau/#data
American Community SurveyUS Censes Bureauhttps://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/data.html
National Crime Victimization SurveyNational Archive of Criminal Justice Datahttps://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/NACJD/studies/36828/versions/V3
Electricity Consumption Dataset by SectorNational Bureau of Statistics of Chinahttp://data.stats.gov.cn/easyquery.htm?cn=E0103
Airbnb Listing Data (by City)Inside Airbnbhttp://insideairbnb.com/get-the-data.html
Chicago Police Department Community Area Crime DataThe City of Chicagohttps://data.cityofchicago.org/Public-Safety/Crimes-2001-to-present-Dashboard/5cd6-ry5g
DC Parking Violations DataThe District of Columbia // Open Data DChttps://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/parking-violations-issued-in-may-2020/data
The National Survey on Drug Use and HealthSubstance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administrationhttps://www.samhsa.gov/data/data-we-collect/nsduh-national-survey-drug-use-and-health
Interactive Atlas of Heart Disease and StrokeThe Centers for Disease Control and Preventionhttps://nccd.cdc.gov/DHDSPAtlas/Default.aspx
2018 General Social SurveyThe University of Chicagohttps://gss.norc.org/Get-The-Data
Youth Behavior Surveillance SystemThe Centers for Disease Control and Preventionhttps://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/data.htm
DESCRIPTIONAUTHENTICATIONTYPENOTESSOURCE
Geographic/Demographic    
Master Address Repository Geocoder Free (only works on windows).exe fileThis is the best way to geocode addresses in DC. It is a program that will take in an excel file of addresses and output lat/long, precinct, X/Y coords, etc. https://octo.dc.gov/service/download-mar-geocoder (Links to an external site.)
Zillow API. Home/Neighborhood DataMake account for free api key APIZillow has quite a few APIs, all accessed in a similar way with the same ID. You can access data about neighborhoods, home prices, demographic data, etc. The most useful may be the neighborhood data, which could be used as a classification  variable. There are a few libraries that assist in the processing of the zillow API, including ZillowR and pyzillow. Additionally, Zillow has some cool mapping tools. The link below details how you can get data to map out their neighborhoods. https://www.zillow.com/howto/api/APIOverview.htm   https://www.zillow.com/howto/api/APIOverview.htm (Links to an external site.)
Google Maps geocoding API0.005 USD per query with account APIUseful for turning addresses into lat/longhttps://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/usage-and-billing (Links to an external site.)
Google Maps directions API0.005 USD  per query with account APIUseful for finding directions. Might be able to help optimize the routes of inspectors. https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/directions/usage-and-billing (Links to an external site.)
Voting Precinct Data FreeExcel FileShows polygons of the voting precincts as of 2012http://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/voting-precinct-2012 (Links to an external site.)
Police DistrictsFreeExcel FilePolygons of MPD Districts. http://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/police-districts (Links to an external site.)
DC Main Street CorridorsFreeExcel FileRecent data about Main Street Corridorshttp://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/dc-main-street-corridors (Links to an external site.)
Washington DC BoundaryFreeExcel File Boundary areas of DChttp://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/washington-dc-boundary (Links to an external site.)
Zip-code Demographic DataFreeExcel File Polygons of zip-codes, as well as some demographic datahttp://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/zip-codes (Links to an external site.)
Crime    
DC Hate Crimes-list of incidents and locationsFreeExcel FileUses address as location. Could be used in conjunction with the google maps api to get lat/long. Although this may get expensive.https://mpdc.dc.gov/node/1334781 (Links to an external site.)
Dc Juvenile Arrest Data FreeExcel FileThere are a lot of crime data files. I won’t list them all but there are more found at the following link. https://mpdc.dc.gov/node/208852 https://mpdc.dc.gov/node/208852 (Links to an external site.)
2018 Crime Data fileFreeExcel FileBest Crime data so far. Includes lat/long and is broken down by district, voting precinct, neighborhood group, etc. http://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/crime-incidents-in-2018?orderBy=BLOCK (Links to an external site.)
Business    
Historically Underutilized Business ZonesFreeExcel File Recent data, HUBZ areas as well as some demographicshttp://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/historically-underutilized-business-zones (Links to an external site.)
Economic Development ZonesFreeExcel File From 2004, but might be good historical datahttp://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/a3aefd57db394fd68d739556253dc44d_18 (Links to an external site.)
District Revitalization AreasFree Excel File From 2003http://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/900148002b174f13881ecd3961119d9c_17 (Links to an external site.)
Housing    
Affordable housing projects Free Excel File Data on affordable housing projects http://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/affordable-housing (Links to an external site.)
Basic Business Licenses (DCRA)Free Excel File Business Licenses, this may be duplicated data.http://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/basic-business-licenses (Links to an external site.)
Politics    
Bill/Sponsors/Legislation Info Free with id numberAPI  (with lots of options)Very cool API, link is to the documentation. It allows you to get info about current/past sessions, active bills, sponsorship of bills. https://legiscan.com/gaits/documentation/legiscan