More than a hundred data sets involving the city of Durham and beyond are now available at your fingertips with the launch of Open Durham, a new open portal that allows you to search, access and download local, city, county and federal data.
This combined project between the City of Durham and Durham County governments features a catalog that is organized into categories: transportation, social services, government administration and finance, economic development, education, health, public safety, sports and leisure, civic planning and environment.
Durham now joins a very short list of cities with an open portal and begins a new era in access to data. In the past, users had to spend significant amounts of time searching through multiple department sites. Now, they can utilize this portal as their single point of reference if they are interested in any Durham subject, from school performance to walking trails.
City of Durham Chief Information Officer Kerry Goode said in a press release that he hopes residents will join in on this interactive experience in addition to those who utilize government data for professional reasons. He believes an increase in residential participation will improve the Durham community.
Durham Chief of Police Jose Lopez Sr. added that Open Durham will enable the Durham Police Department to serve the community more effectively due to the enhanced transparency provided by the portal.
