Data-Driven Capital Planning: Unlocking a More Equitable City

The Baltimore Department of Planning and the NYC Department of City Planning are leaders among American cities, using data to drive more equitable approaches to capital planning: capital budget data to analyze how funding is distributed and to what assets across the city, demographics data to identify population vulnerability and areas of historic disinvestment, and capital needs data to understand how well neighborhoods are served by existing public infrastructure, like parks, transportation, and libraries. Baltimore analyzes the geographic distribution of proposed capital investments and their relationship to demographic and income factors, using the results to inform the city’s capital budget. Baltimore will share the evolution of this analysis and how it has been used to push decision-making in a more equitable direction. NYC is piloting the use of data analyses to drive capital budgeting by building a methodology to calculate capital budgets for neighborhood-scale plans and a process to prioritize capital projects. Learn from these maturing programs how to integrate an equitable approach to capital planning and budgeting for your municipality, using capital budgeting, demographics, and capital needs data.

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