Urban Studies & Urban Policy

Tool that allows users to find cities across the United States that face similar challenges or have similar demographic or socioeconomic profiles.

Offers research and datasets on housing, community development, and other topics from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

From HKS's Center for International Development, a data visualization tool that allows users to compare cities around the world based on their economic and technological capabilities.

Comprehensive dataset, based on a survey conducted by ICMA (International City/County Management Association), that covers various aspects of municipal politics and government, including the election and demographics of elected officials.

Provides census tract-level data on health risk factors and health outcomes primarily but not exclusively in U.S. cities; a collaboration between the the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Web-based GIS that captures data through custom demographic maps, tables, reports and an analysis tool called Analytics. You can incorporate your own data and use thousands of indicators already available including demographics, home sale statistics, health data, mortgage trends, school performance scores and labor data like unemployment, crime statistics and city crime rates.

Covers popular topics of research interest for U.S. states, counties, cities, metropolitan areas, and ZIP codes.

Mapping tool for the United States that enables the creation of maps and tables that incorporate data such as population, age, race, income, employment, and education. In addition, Harvard subscribes to premium content including Experian Simmons Local for market research data and D&B for business demographics.

Create maps and tables of data from the decennial Census and the American Community Survey from 1790-2010+. Also includes religion surveys from 1980-2010.

Offers access to data from the decennial census, American Community Survey, Economic Census, and other sources, including several surveys documenting housing, demographics, and local business conditions that are essential to studying urban policy issues in the United States.

Extensive list of geospatial data sources from the Francis Loeb Library at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, including many relevant to urban policy (e.g., transportation, housing, etc.).

Information on data sources and software available to researchers at Harvard.

Two-part article providing an overview of data resources for studying housing policy.

• Part I: Public Sector Data Sources
• Part II: Private Sources, Administrative Records, and Future Directions