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You have arrived at DataHaven, where we provide data for community action.

We collect, interpret, and share public data to empower communities to make effective, informed decisions. We provide a public service by working with a wide variety of partners to develop innovative reports, tools, and technical assistance programs that make this information more useful.

We belong to national, statewide, and local efforts to the promote the use of local information in policymaking and community development. 

Our website is our headquarters.

DataHaven home page

If you have not visited before, welcome! Here, we describe local communities, publish our extensive research, share relevant resources from our collaborators, and promote innovation in our field.

If you have used our site in the past, welcome back! You probably noticed that things look a little different.

Since our founding twenty-five years ago, we have cultivated and shared a repository of valuable quality of life indicators. Yet in recent years the amount of accessible public data has dramatically increased. In the past, sites like ours were envisioned as places where you could go to find any data you needed. However, with the exponential growth of available data and with our state and federal government agencies now hosting multiple different websites as open data repositories (including the Connecticut Open Data Portal for certain state government datasets), having a single “data warehouse” is no longer a feasible objective for anyone.

In the Age of Big Data, information is available on nearly everything (even the number of coffee shops in your town), and the amount of it doubles every year. Sifting through tens of thousands of potential data sources for the most relevant, quality data can be daunting.

That’s where we come in. As data stewards, our local, state, and national partners task us with selecting and maintaining the most important information for the communities we serve, and sharing it with you in relevant, useful mediums.

We have designed our new website to do just that — first, to direct you to the most meaningful information. Second, to serve as a portal in which the general public can easily see what we do and what we have published, and request our help. Ask us for what you need and we will find it or direct you to the source.

The new website renovation will simplify your navigation to the resources you need.

We’ve reorganized so that the resources from our previous website are easier to find and to use:

Moving thousands of pieces of information from our old website, established in 2003 as one of the first of its kind in the United States, has taken time and remains a work in progress. Please stay tuned as we gradually re-populate these pages with new data and requests; some of the information that we have archived from 2003 to 2014 will be accessible in the meantime. More than ever, it would be impossible for us to post more than a tiny fraction of the data that we work with, so contact us if we can help.

DataHaven Partners excerptAs always, you can follow news about us and coverage of our work on our Connecticut data blog, or take a minute to learn about DataHaven, our staff and board, and our partners.  

If in doubt as you search our website for a specific item or topic, use the top bar to guide you to each of our resource pages or to search the site for what you need. All of our data resources are tagged by category, key terms, and community. And if you still cannot find what you need or if you require more assistance, we encourage you to reach out to us.

We now invite you to explore our new website, discover meaningful information, and apply it. We think you will like the changes!

Thanks for stopping by,

Mark Abraham, Executive Director

Mary Buchanan, Project Manager

[Excerpt] A new study shows that growing economic inequality is taking root in Connecticut.

The analysis from DataHaven shows that the percentage of Connecticut residents living in neighborhoods of concentrated wealth or poverty grew by 30% between 1980 and 2013. Meanwhile, the percentage of residents living in middle-income neighborhoods shrunk by about 7 percent.
 
These trends show that income inequality is a chronic issue — and that the polarization of Connecticut neighborhoods is growing, the report states. The same is true in other U.S. regions, leading to poor health and high crime in areas of extreme poverty, and concentration of regional resources in very affluent neighborhoods for richer residents. 

[Excerpt] From 1980 to 2013, the percentage of Connecticut residents living in neighborhoods of concentrated wealth or poverty grew by 30 percent, according to a new analysis from DataHaven.

Meanwhile, the percentage of residents living in middle-income neighborhoods shrunk 7 percent.
 
These trends show that income inequality is a chronic issue — and that the polarization of Connecticut neighborhoods is growing. Studies show that this concentration of wealth and poverty causes several negative outcomes. Among them are poor health and high crime in areas of extreme poverty, and the concentration of regional resources in very affluent neighborhoods for richer residents.
 
Additionally, our recently published analysis that compared Connecticut to a national study of racially concentrated affluence showed that Connecticut faces racial segregation along income lines that in many ways surpass those of other large metropolitan areas.

[Excerpt] A positive influx of immigrants fed the rapid growth, even as the city lost native-born residents. By the latest tally, 17 percent of New Haven’s 130,000 residents are immigrants. Their origins, ages, skills, citizenship statuses, and personal stories are different, but their overall impact is clear: “The surge of immigration in recent years shows us yet again how important [immigrants are] to the growth and success of our community,” according to William W. Ginsberg, President & CEO of The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. As seen in other cities, the report shows how immigrants contribute to New Haven’s resilience, revitalizing the community through economic and social investment.

Immigrants help sustain a dynamic workforce in Greater New Haven. Foreign-born people are more likely to be employed than native-born residents; further, there are two high-skilled immigrant workers for every low-skilled immigrant worker. All these people contribute to the local economy by paying taxes, supporting businesses, and increasing trade with foreign markets.

The New Haven region study also shows that immigrants are frequent participants in local real estate, institutions, and economy – often at higher rates than native-born people. For example, naturalized citizens living in the city of New Haven are more likely to own a home (43 percent of households) than native-born citizens (32 percent). Since 2005, overall public school enrollment has decreased in Connecticut and in the Greater New Haven region, but it has grown among foreign-language speakers. Foreign-born people are substantially more likely than native-born people to own a business.

The World Health Organization has selected Greater New Haven as one of 15 urban areas worldwide to pilot a planned age-friendly city indicator guide.

The guide will be designed to measure areas where cities and communities can better adapt to the needs of older people. Mark Abraham, executive director of Data Haven, is collaborating on the project. “The World Health Organization has a framework that looks at the physical infrastructure,” he said, “like the layout of streets and communities, and the social engagement, like how effective government is at responding to the needs of seniors. [It also looks at] how engaged seniors are in their communities.”

[Excerpt] How easy is it to live in the New Haven area if you’re a senior? How well can you get around, engage in social activities and civic duties or keep a good job and secure health care?

Questions like those were among a broad range of topics discussed Thursday at the Ives Memorial Library as part of a global effort by the World Health Organization to create an “age-friendly city indicator guide.”
 
New Haven is among cities such as Bilbao, Spain, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Shanghai and Washington that are taking part in the project. About 25 people from local and state organizations gathered to critique the WHO’s findings in an effort to improve the final report.
 
“If you look at the population over 85 … that population has grown from about 64,000 a few years ago and it’s projected to be about 100,000 in 10 years,” said Mark Abraham, executive director of DataHaven, a nonprofit agency that has conducted surveys about topics such as mass transit, health care, mental health, economic and food security and community engagement.
 
A Community Wellbeing Survey of up to 15,000 state residents will be expanded from a regional poll to a statewide survey, and be conducted from May to September, he said.
 
“We have about 100 partners, including foundations across the state, and more than 20 hospitals and health departments are involved in the project,” Abraham said.

 

[Excerpt] After decades of suburban sprawl, a new report shows that more jobs — and better, higher-paying jobs — are flocking to our nation’s cities, even as peripheral areas see their job base erode. Here in Connecticut, employment growth in dense city centers like New Haven and Hartford is once again driving our state’s overall economic vitality.

The latest findings make it clear that our suburban towns are growing even more dependent on our downtowns for wages and revenues. This raises big questions about housing and transportation policies, and whether state and national priorities can evolve to reflect the major shift.
 
First, let’s look at the facts: Since the recession, job growth in large downtown centers nationwide has far outpaced rates in peripheral suburban areas, according to a new report by the think tank City Observatory. This reverses the decades-long trend of job opportunities expanding in suburbs, but stagnating in city centers. Indeed, peripheral areas and many smaller towns have lost large numbers of jobs since 2007.
 
Our nonprofit, DataHaven, which collects and shares public information on Connecticut, finds that New Haven and Hartford are experiencing similar shifts: From 2007 to 2011, jobs in the 3-mile “urban core” around New Haven’s city hall increased by 7 percent, while they declined by 5 percent in the surrounding suburban “ring” from 3 to 15 miles beyond that — stretching from Stratford to Cheshire and Wallingford to Madison. Hartford experienced a 4 percent increase in urban core jobs, while its suburban ring endured a 2 percent loss. Combined, these two urban cores gained 11,000 jobs from 2007 to 2011, even as their surrounding suburban rings experienced a net loss of nearly 18,000 jobs.

 

[Excerpt] In recent years, job growth in downtown centers nationwide has far outpaced growth in surrounding suburban areas, according to a widely-cited report released this week by the City Observatory. According to a DataHaven analysis of the Census dataset used in the report, New Haven and Hartford are experiencing a similar shift.

The rising shares of jobs, and particularly higher-paying jobs, that are located in city centers indicate that suburbs – and indeed, the entire State of Connecticut – are increasingly dependent on city cores like New Haven, Hartford, and New York City to provide employment and living wages.
 
The faster growth rates in urban centers, compared to peripheral areas which in many towns are actually losing jobs, reverse a decades-long trend in which employment opportunities rose in suburbs but stagnated in city centers. The New York Times notes that “as people increasingly choose to live in cities instead of outside them, employers are following.” 
 
The study compared many American metropolitan areas, defining the city center as the three-mile ring surrounding the central business district, and the suburbs as the remainder of the metropolitan area, and examining job growth from 2002-2007 and from 2007-2011 (see image).
 
Additional analysis by DataHaven identified similar trends in Connecticut, where the concentration of jobs is growing in the areas near downtown Hartford and New Haven, but falling within surrounding suburban towns.
 
Following the method used by City Observatory, DataHaven defined the “urban cores” as the three-mile radius around each city center (for Connecticut, defined as City Hall). However, we defined surrounding suburban regions as the area between three miles and 15 miles beyond that, which we believe to be a more accurate reflection of the way that metropolitan areas are structured in New England than the Census definition, which is based on county boundaries. 

 

[Excerpt] Immigrants contribute to the economic, cultural and social well-being of the Greater New Haven region.  That according to a recently released report, “Understanding the Impact of Immigration in Greater New Haven,” issued by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, found that as of 2012, one in eight residents of the 20-town region is foreign-born, coming from all corners of the globe. About half are naturalized US citizens; the rest are legal permanent residents, legal temporary residents or undocumented immigrants.

William W. Ginsberg, president and CEO of the Community Foundation, said, “the origin and nationalities of the immigrants may have changed over the years, but the story is the same.”
 
Foreign-born residents have helped to revitalize previously-declining city neighborhoods by renting or investing in homes and creating small businesses. They contribute millions of dollars in property taxes to municipalities throughout the region, place great emphasis on their children’s education and  contribute to the diversity and cultural richness of the community.
 
Ginsberg said immigrants – including the undocumented – are responsible for many of the things city residents are most proud of: its diversity, arts, culture and dining.
 
“It is not our understanding that immigrants don’t face obstacles and prejudice,” he said. “But I think this region has distinguished itself for being welcoming.”
 
The report, written by Mark Abraham and Mary Buchanan of DataHaven, a local nonprofit organization that compiles, shares and interprets public data to facilitate policy-making and community-building. They pulled together input from key stakeholders and the results of an online survey completed by nearly 600 foundation constituents, as well as information from numerous sources, including government agencies, to capture the many dimensions of immigration’s impact.
 
In surveying foundation constituents, the idea was not to scientifically measure public opinion on immigration, but rather to get a general picture of the range of attitudes, Ginsberg said.
 
Among survey respondents, 86 percent said that Connecticut was very or somewhat welcoming to immigrants. Many noted that local policies, assisting agencies and the attitudes of residents contribute to a more hospitable atmosphere in New Haven proper than in surrounding municipalities.

[Excerpt] If Greater New Haven is thriving, the region’s rapidly-growing immigrant population is a key reason, according to a new research study. The report, entitled Understanding the Impact of Immigration in Greater New Haven, compiles data from federal, state and local government agencies, as well as information generated locally by DataHaven and The Community Foundation of Greater New Haven.

 
Viewed as “an important step in its effort to enhance the civic and economic participation of immigrants in Greater New Haven,” the report was undertaken to provide a snapshot of the immigrants living in Greater New Haven and Connecticut, the impact of local population change and diversity, and the community and economic impact. It is intended to help the general public, policymakers and local leaders understand the impact of immigration in the region to inform discussions and community action.