2010 SOCRR Public Safety

In case you missed it, the Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies released the public safety part of its 2010 State of the Chattanooga Region Report (SOCRR) a few weeks ago. You can, and should, download the full report. However, there is a very nice new feature on the site that uses Tableau to display, and allow interaction with, the report data.(North Chattanooga example) Below is a version of it with side by side viewing of crime rate changes by percent and number of incidents. This one works ok to about 3 or 4 comparisons, but with all of the years of incident totals you have to scroll a bit. I did this to demonstrate the fact that you, yes you, can download this data and do something with it. Two things about this - Why this is important and how you can use it.

Is Important - Having these interactive worksheets on the Ochs Center's site is important for many reasons. The ability to interact and do comparisons between neighborhoods is done in an intuitive way that simply wasn't possible before. This tool is great for individuals, organizations, and neighborhood associations who, in the past, had to dig through the full SOCRR or compare individual pdf files for the neighborhoods. Now you just click to build the info you want to see, maybe do some tweaks and then you can save an image or pdf of the chart to use in a presentation. Better yet, you can view the data and download it. If you really need to spend some time with it, download the whole workbook and explore it, full screen, on your computer with the free Tableau Reader. (When using the site, pay attention to the icons on the bottom of the viz, they are what allow you do these things.) This tool, together with the full SOCRR, is a strong combination. The tool allows for quick reference and numbers, but without understanding the data sources and report methodology outlined in the full report, it is just looking at the surface.

Use It -
Apart from doing quick comparisons here or at the source, there are more fun and powerful things you can do with it. As mentioned, you can download the whole workbook from the download link in the lower corner of the viz. This workbook can be opened in any Tableau product and explored or, in Desktop and Public, manipulated and transformed. For example, if you just want to explore the charts full screen, you can use Tableau Reader. It gives you basic functionality but doesn't allow any changes to the data or workbook. If you wanted to dig deeper and alter it to your needs, you could use Tableau Desktop or Tableau Public(free). (Note - anything saved in the Public version is published to Tableau's servers and is available to be downloaded by anyone. Thats how you got it!) With the one below, I took the workbook, cut it down to a few sheets and created a dashboard and placed them side by side. Another one I am working on triggers the charts from the shooting map I built. So you click on an incident and it displays crime stats for that neighborhood. Likewise, I will try to set a filter on the neighborhood list so choosing a neighborhood will highlight the incidents on the map. You get the idea. Keep an eye out as the rest of the SOCRR is rolled out.

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(Another note: Not that it would change things here, but I am now on the board at the Ochs Center. I don't have any connection to Tableau, I just love and use their products.)