DataTown

Have you ever tried to collect data about your city or town, only to find that you need to navigate through multiple web sites and data types that don't quite make sense for Massachusetts?

If the answer is yes, you'll love DataTown. MHP launched DataTown in 2019 so that community leaders could spend less time collecting data and more time using data to help address their housing needs.

DataTown has data for every town in the Commonwealth, plus a feature that allows you to build graphics that compare communities. It has data on town’s population growth history, age demographics, income, tenure, affordability and racial composition. There are additional sections on housing inventory and production, and labor force (employment, commuting, occupations and industries).

DataTown allows you to download data as simple graphics. We did this to spark better community conversations about housing. For the data savvy, we have a feature that allows you to download the underlying data so the data-savvy can craft their own materials.

If you have comments on what more you'd like to see on DataTown, email Tom Hopper at thopper@mhp.net. You can follow him on twitter at @data_hopper.