Data Accessibility as a Pathway to Genuine Equality for Atlanta's Westside Communities
Laura Kathrn O'Connell (Westside Communities Alliance), Mackenzie, Madden (Westside Communities Alliance), Sheri Davis-Faulkner (Westside, Communities Alliance)

TL;DR
This paper discusses how accessible data via online tools like the WCA Data Dashboard can promote genuine equality by empowering Atlanta's Westside communities with localized, understandable information to influence decision-making and improve community prosperity.
Contribution
It introduces a community-driven data dashboard designed to enhance data accessibility and empower marginalized neighborhoods in Atlanta's Westside.
Findings
The Data Dashboard provides neighborhood-level data on demographics, housing, education, and history.
Community engagement was crucial in developing the user-friendly data platform.
The platform has the potential to reduce power imbalances in data-driven decision-making.
Abstract
Data is a dominant force during the decision-making process. It can help determine which roads to expand and the optimal location for a grocery store. Data can also be used to influence which schools to open or to shutter and "appropriate" city services to continue or discontinue. Considered fact-based, objective, and impartial, data can trump emotional appeals during the final evaluation of a project; thus creating a power imbalance between those with the resources to access data and those without. Most often left behind are communities already struggling to stay afloat due to years of disinvestment by market forces and external decision-makers. For long ignored residents in Atlanta's Westside neighborhoods, the burden of inaccessible data continuously thwarts their opportunity for mobility. However, with the advent of the internet and the global push for open data, access to…
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Taxonomy
TopicsTechnology Use by Older Adults · Urban Transport and Accessibility · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities
