Harnessing Data and Knowledge of New York City Facilities to Respond to COVID-19

New York City's response to COVID-19 required unprecedented
creativity and collaboration among its city agencies. Bob Tuttle,
director of the New York City Department of City Planning’s
Capital Planning Division, comes on the podcast to describe to
Ann Dillemuth, AICP, senior research and professional practice
associate, how the division was asked to use its datasets and
knowledge of city facilities in the early days of the response to
identify possible locations for surge hospitals.
The conversation also delves into the capital planning team's
work in general, which aims to integrate planning perspectives
and data-driven planning analytics into the city’s capital budget
planning and decision-making process. Bob describes a few of the
resources the division offers, including the Facilities Explorer,
a combination of more than 50 public datasets, and he points to
department success stories, such as how one planner realized a
police department intake site in the East New York neighborhood
had the potential for something greater. After a multiyear,
cross-agency effort, a youth center emerged — all because the
team reviewed their extensive data sets, listened to community
needs, and brought in the expertise of the full suite of the
city's agencies.