Place making via the collaborative

Hello readers, thanks for tuning in.  It seems like the last idea published in september gained very little attention except for a few positive responses.  No negative ones, though.  Lately I've been running into serendipitous events related to data.  large amounts of data.  
Our fine City and County of Honolulu is launching a program to attempt to be as transparent as possible through a site called Can-do Honolulu.   
http://can-do.honolulu.gov/

Still a little sparse on the details, and entire data sets not yet available - but if anyone can get a hold of the cities' permit data sets, i would be really interested in that.  With that data, I should be able to create a map of projects, along with who the architects and contractors and owners of those projects.  

Imagine being able to search for my name, and finding all of the permits that have been filed with my stamp on it.  Or which projects a particular contractor has been the general contractor for.  This type of engine would be really useful as a mobile application as well.  

Now imagine a data set with an address and all related permits, fused with a data set from the PBN Book of Lists - available for $200.  here:  http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/research/bol-marketing/

We'd be able to find out a heck of a lot of information in a very short time frame about an owner, a property, who's working for them, and begin to map the network of people and companies related to each other.

Now imagine that if I had this data on a website (portal), that actually covered all data related to that address or Tax Map Key.  Too much information?  I'd say so.  But savvy business people know this:  that organizations that are data driven have higher performance.  Don't believe me?  Check out the latest Harvard Business Review - it discusses these exact drivers!  HBR calls it Big Data:  http://hbr.org/product/baynote/an/R1210C-PDF-ENG?referral=00505

I'm on a tear to find out how to use big Hawaiian data as it relates to real estate.  With the right data sets, there's no telling what power lies under the hood.  But I can tell you that easy access to this type of information in Hawaii is huge.. .  because speed of information to a client is EVERYTHING!  

Keep on the lookout as I begin to work with google Fusion, and some mobile apps to start bringing this data to you.  Naturally I'll be using it for two things.  1) to assist my lead generation, and 2) to create a stir with myvillageplan.com  Let me know if you want to jump in to assist!  The more the merrier!   And if I can fundraise, then we can buy more data sets, like Loopnets data sets to go with these.


So.... How does this all work with place-making?  Here's the thing.  Place-making is part art, part science.  We take data from human behavior, along with brain research and track to see how human performance is affected by certain elements in the environment.  If you add 50% more daylight and sales go up 25% or IQ scores go up 15%, then that is a huge testament to having daylight in your "place".  Same thing goes for water, trees, food, roads, street and sidewalk widths, plaza dimensions, whether they are sunken or raised, etc...  there is a book in this, and that's part of the reason i'm looking for these data sets.

What I really need now, though, is someone who can help access the city's data sets for permit information.  Thanks to all!