MoveSmart.org – Technology for an Integrated Chicagoland

Last week, I read about MoveSmart.org at ReadWriteWeb (also coverage at Wikinomics) and thought some of the real estate geeks reading Geek Estate might be interested in the project. According to MoveSmar.org -

Until now, information on neighborhoods has been buried in the back of academic reports, pinned to community center bulletin boards, and locked in data sets only available to planners, inaccessible to those who would benefit from it the most: housing seekers looking for a better neighborhood. MoveSmart.org will leverage the power of this information by combining these and other data sources into a single mapping engine built into a full-featured site that includes guides, tools, calculators, forums, and social networks, all designed to foster racial and economic integration.

Previous integration initiatives have proven costly and focused on families receiving public aid. Housing seekers with unlimited funds have always had the luxury of living where they choose. But for millions of families who have limited resources, finding the right neighborhood is difficult. MoveSmart.org will educate housing seekers about the benefits of integrative moves while at the same time providing suggestions on where to move, guides on how to move, and information on how to get involved in their new neighborhoods, inspiring pride in a new community and putting them on a path to true integration.

According to the video -

MoveSmart.org fosters racial and economic integration by empowering housing seekers and the professionals that support them with interactive, contextual, and comprehensive information on neighborhoods and their opportunities.

Obviously I’m biased given Zillow is my employer, but hopefully they’ll consider using the Zillow neighborhood boundaries & local real estate data as pieces of data used in their mash up.

It’ll certainly be interesting to watch this project develop, which should be fairly quickly given the project is an entrant in the upcoming NetSquared Mashup Challenge in May.