Awesome Open City Data

A curated list of open data sources to analyze and compare cities in a holistic way à la data science and empower citizens.

Topics

1. Economy

• Cost of living
• Salary
• Businesses

2. Infrastructure

• Transportation
• Energy
• Health
• Water
• Waste/recycling and sanitation
• Internet
• Heavy industry
• Agriculture

3. Demographics

• Population
• Workforce
• Education
• Crime
• Immigration/emigration

4. Environment

• Climate
• Air quality
• Soil quality
• Noise
• Waterways
• Parks/forests/Conservation areas
• Natural disasters
• Pollution

5. Development

• Residential planned/new/stock
• Commercial planned/new/stock
• Real estate market
• Zoning and Land use
• Energy demand

6. Life Style

• Happiness
• Culture
• Communities

How to use this list

This list is for anyone looking to get a quantitative perspective on a specific place. This is not a database, it is a list of data sources. Based on the geographically distributed nature of this data and my personal interests the availability of data is going to be biased. It is my intention that you add data sources from your geographic areas of interest via pull requests to grow open data usage and improve diversity and detail. Once a significant amount of data sources exist for several places good analysis and comparisons can be made.

Structure

The idea is to curate an alphabetical list of data sources by geographic level from macro to micro scale, in descending subsets, following as closely as possible:

1. Nation
2. state/province/canton
3. city/metropolitan area
4. district/neighbourhood

Level	Topics	Status	Description	Format	Source	link

Level column

Example of Levels column:

Level	meaning
*	datasets at nation level for multiple nations
Switzerland/*	datasets at canton level for multiple cantons in Switzerland
*/*	datasets at state/province/canton level for state/province/canton cantons in multiple nations
United States/Illinois/Chicago/	datasets at city level for Chicago, Illinois
United States/Illinois/*/	datasets at city level for multiple cities in Illinois

While including so many levels many seem confusing it allows for greater specification, and with the increasing socio-economic links between a city and its metropolitan area this specification is worthwhile.

Format column

The main distinction is whether there is a provided API, raw data downloads, (in .csv/.xml/.json/etc.), or aggregate stats. The aggregate stats are calculated on data that is not made available directly.

Aggregators

Many data sources are themselves data services/bases/warehouses operated by governments or institutions. These sources are listed in a similar fashion to stand-alone data sets, but contain multiple topics and levels. These sources are also more likely to provide an API. Individual data sets of particular interest within these collections can be listed separately to make best usage of this list.

Contents

Level	Topics	Status	Description	Format	Source
*	Health	up	Disease burden, Health	raw	Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)
* / * / * / *	Economics	up	Cost of living user contributed data about cities	aggregate stats (paid API)	Numbeo
Africa / * / * / *	*	up	Independent data from African continent	raw	openAfrica
European Union / * / * / *	*	up	EU government open data	API and raw	EU Open Data Portal
Canada / */ *	Development	up	National Bank House Price Index	aggregate stats	Teranet-National Bank
Canada / * / * / *	*	up	Canadian Open Data Inventory	raw	Open Government Canada
Canada / Alberta / Edmonton / *	*	up	Edmonton City data	raw	City of Edmonton Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Brampton / *	*	up	Brampton City data	raw	OpenGov Brampton
Canada / Ontario / Toronto / *	*	up	Toronto City data	raw	City of Toronto Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Toronto / *	Development	up	Cleared building permits	raw	City of Toronto Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Toronto / *	Development	up	Active building permits	raw	City of Toronto Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Toronto / *	Development	up	3D building massing	raw	City of Toronto Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Waterloo / *	*	up	Waterloo City data	raw	City of Waterloo Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Waterloo / *	Infrastructure	up	Trails pedestrian and cyclist counts	raw	City of Waterloo Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Waterloo / *	Infrastructure	up	Traffic Closures (1/16/2017-7/10/2018)	raw	City of Waterloo Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Waterloo / *	Infrastructure	up	Road Traffic Volumes	raw	City of Waterloo Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Waterloo / *	Infrastructure	up	Sidewalks	raw	City of Waterloo Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Waterloo / *	Infrastructure	up	Bridges	raw	City of Waterloo Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Waterloo / *	Development	up	Buildings	raw	City of Waterloo Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Waterloo / *	Development	up	Community Gardens	raw	City of Waterloo Open Data
Canada / Ontario / Waterloo / *	Development	up	Libraries	raw	City of Waterloo Open Data
Canada / Ontario / York Region / *	*	up	York Region data	raw	York Region Open Data
Germany / ? / ? /	Development	up	energy consumption of 107 municipal buildings	raw	https://im.iism.kit.edu/sciber.php
Switzerland / Zürich / Zürich / *	*	up	City of Zürich open data	raw	Stadt Zürich
Switzerland / Zürich / Zürich / *	Development	up	Social housing construction	raw	Stadt Zürich
Switzerland / Zürich / Zürich / *	Development	up	Construction activities since 2009	raw	Stadt Zürich
Switzerland / Zürich / Zürich / *	Development	up	Completed and demolished apartments since 2009	raw	Stadt Zürich
Switzerland / Zürich / Zürich / *	Development	up	Completed and demolished apartments since 2009	raw	Stadt Zürich
Switzerland / Zürich / Zürich / *	Development	up	Residences by property type and age group since 2008	raw	Stadt Zürich
Switzerland / Zürich / Zürich / *	Development	up	Cinema locations 1907-2018	raw	Stadt Zürich
Switzerland / Zürich / Zürich / *	Environment	up	Air quality 1983-2012	raw	Stadt Zürich
Switzerland / Zürich / Zürich / *	Infrastructure	up	City energy consumption 1990-2016	raw	Stadt Zürich
Switzerland / Zürich / Zürich / *	Infrastructure	up	City primary energy balance 1990-2016	raw	Stadt Zürich
United States / * / * / *	*	up	US Federal government open data	API and raw	Data.gov
United States / * / * / *	Development	up	MicroSoft US Building Footprints	raw	Links on Github Microsoft/USBuildingFootprints
United States / Massachusetts / Cambridge / *	*	up	City of Cambridge data	raw	www.cambridgema.gov
United States / Massachusetts / Cambridge / *	Development	up	Cambridge property database	raw	www.cambridgema.gov

Sources to look through

• http://www.pewinternet.org/datasets/
• https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/search/studies
• https://datahub.io/search
• https://github.com/awesomedata/awesome-public-datasets
• https://github.com/datasciencemasters/data
• https://www.reddit.com/r/datasets/
• https://github.com/CityofToronto/vz_challenge
• https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/search/studies
• https://github.com/City-Bureau/city-scrapers
• https://github.com/citygram/citygram-services
• http://dataportals.org/
• https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/search/studies
• https://registry.opendata.aws/
• http://www.economagic.com/

City Data Collection Projects

• https://www.citygram.org/
• http://budgetpedia.ca/
• http://www.greenbuttondata.org

License

To the extent possible under law, Thomas Stesco has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.