Along with the Healthy Aging Data Reports and Community Profiles, communities now have another useful tool to help them conduct assessments as part of Age- and Dementia Friendly efforts.

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) has re-released DataCommon, an open data resource that was first launched in 2006 and is returning after an extensive user-focused restructuring and redesign. It includes data on a variety of indicators for every city and town and, while it’s intended for planners, it can help anyone – residents, stakeholders, planners, city and town officials, educators, journalists – explore data and make informed decisions.

In 2006, MAPC launched the very first version of MAPC’s DataCommon in collaboration with the Boston Indicators Project at the Boston Foundation. Since then, it’s gone through multiple iterations and updates. Most recently, the MetroBoston DataCommon allowed users to explore data, look at community snapshots, and create their own charts and maps.

This year, the MAPC Digital Services team took on the task rebuilding the DataCommon. The new, simplified browser makes it easy to grab a quick fact about any city or town in Massachusetts or to dig deep into any of the data. What most users won’t see right away is the ‘back end’ work that connects the Data Common directly to MAPC’s in-house database, so that as new data is added, it’s available to external users with no delay or extra processing needed.

Learn more via MAPC’s blog post on DataCommon.