The National Infrastructure for Community Statistics: Liberating Public GIS and Statistical Data

The needs of local communities for Comprehensive Information Systems (not just Geographic Information Systems) require new social, political and architectural models that enable collaboration and the seamless integration of all types of data into an In- formation Commons, breaking down the barriers between expert and non-expert users, and between geo-data and non geo-data. This paper describes the Pittsburgh Commu- nity Information System (CIS), a pioneering collaboration involving 3 Rivers Connect, the Universal Database technology of MAYA Design, and the National Infrastructure for Community Statistics project sponsored by the Brookings Institution. The Pittsburgh CIS enables desktop access to a massive distributed database of real-time, up-to-date information from federal agencies, local agencies, and non-profits, that non-technical users can query and analyze with powerful, easy-to-use statistical tools and GIS map- ping capabilities. The Pittsburgh CIS is part of a growing collection of integrated public datasets called the Information Commons, implemented using a Universal Database tech- nology that enables the crucial goal of information liquidity to be realized.