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Crowdsourced Property Condition Survey Using Street-Level Photography

Solution Overview

New Orleans developed a rapid property condition survey methodology that captures street-level photography using car-mounted cameras and engages community members to evaluate each parcel through a crowdsourcing application.[3][7] The system was developed as the city approached the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, inspired by Intel's Code for Good commitment to the White House Climate Data Initiative.[6][2] This approach addresses the urgent need for comprehensive parcel data after the USPS deleted nearly every blighted home from its address count, leaving the city without reliable indicators of blight and increasing the necessity for a process to track the status of every property with regularity.[9]

Technical Components

Staff drove every street of the city capturing photos of each building with two consumer grade cameras with wide angle lenses purchased from the local tech store, equipped with an integrated GPS that tagged the location to each photo taken.[5] Photos are taken in one-second intervals, with the speed of the vehicle regulating the number of images in which a property appears.[6] The city uploaded the building pictures to a data layer and joined them to corresponding parcel location data.[5] Municipal authorities have come up with innovative ideas for photo shoots, such as attaching cameras to firetrucks or street cleaners.[6] Esri created the Photo Survey app for New Orleans, which any local government can use to publish street-level photo collections.[5] The simple 10-second survey asks six questions: 1) Is there a structure on the property? 2) Is the lot overgrown? 3) Is there apparent damage to the siding or walls? 4) Is there apparent damage to the windows or doors? 5) Is there damage to the roof? 6) What's the foundation type?[5] The system is designed to collect data about the status of the city's 150,000 properties by showing building photos and asking survey questions about property condition.[5] Scoring of properties is randomized across the city, reducing the likelihood of bias where stakeholders in one neighborhood might score properties on a different threshold than stakeholders in a different neighborhood.[2]

Implementation Details

The city did not have the resources to actually complete the survey for these properties, so it asked Esri to build a crowdsourcing solution.[5] Photo Survey began with Esri's commitment to the White House's agenda to combat climate change, according to Chris Buscaglia, Esri local government solutions manager.[6] Much of the initiative came from New Orleans officials, such as Greg Hymel, enterprise GIS manager.[6] Esri provided geospatial technology and expertise to 12 cities to build maps and apps that the communities can use to plan for the impacts of climate change, including New Orleans, Louisiana.[1] The methodology allows boots-on-the-ground post-disaster to be limited to 2 or less staff for 2 weeks for a city the size of New Orleans by driving the camera-on-car on every street.[2] Volunteers can be anywhere at any time, and scoring of each property takes less time than sidewalk surveys.[2] Locals might still do the majority of the crowdsourced scoring for baseline data, but in the event of a catastrophic event, e-volunteers from around the world can join in.[2] The system is cost-effective enough to be repeated frequently, providing baseline data for normal planning and resource allocation, and supporting rapid-rebound and strategic recovery after shocks.[2] On the city side of the app, managers have a dashboard with a gauge showing the number of surveys completed, bar charts showing the number of problem types reported such as damaged roofs, and color-coded dots indicating parcels that have been surveyed.[5]

Benefits and Impacts

This approach is designed to cut down on the amount of time cities and volunteers spend surveying neighborhoods and documenting conditions such as graffiti and rundown buildings.[6] The crowdsourcing photo-survey tool helps ensure that the burden of data collection post-disaster will never again fall squarely on citizens who are already struggling to rebuild their homes and neighborhoods.[4] After a disaster, the imagery can be quickly collected and used to rapidly assess recovery needs and support services, such as mobile first aid clinics, food and water distribution, and temporary housing.[3] During disaster recovery, a citywide property condition census conducted at regular intervals can provide crucial progress updates and be used to strategically deploy public services and case management.[3] Having comprehensive pre-storm data can facilitate more efficient reimbursement from FEMA and private insurers.[3] Outside of crises, the property condition data can be used to develop strategies for risk reduction, code enforcement, and reuse of vacant property.[3] The Office of Performance and Accountability, which oversees BlightStat with Oliver Wise serving as director, tracked 7,671 blighted property addresses remediated through city intervention since 2010, which reduced to fewer than 7,200 unique addresses once duplicates were eliminated.[8] As of March 2012, there were an estimated 35,700 blighted homes and empty lots in New Orleans, down from 43,755 in September 2010.[9]

Climate Adaptation Relevance

This rapid assessment system directly addresses climate adaptation needs by enabling efficient post-disaster property condition evaluation and recovery planning. The methodology supports both baseline risk assessment for normal planning and rapid response capabilities after climate-related shocks, providing the data infrastructure necessary for strategic recovery and resource allocation following extreme weather events.

Business Analysis

After Hurricane Katrina, government agencies, universities, nonprofits, and neighborhood associations struggled to survey the city parcel-by-parcel, with collection methods that varied, data that didn't integrate with each other or municipal data sets, and most imagery and data not shared with the public.[2] Neighborhood residents and legions of volunteers organized field data-collection efforts to document the condition of storm-damaged buildings.[4] Only a massive operation that goes door-to-door to inspect every parcel in the city can provide an accurate count of the number of blighted properties in New Orleans.[9] The city will need to begin coordinating citywide data collection efforts to track blight going forward, as USPS data will provide less reliable indicators over time.[9] The crowdsourcing model addresses resource constraints by enabling distributed volunteer participation while maintaining data quality through randomized scoring protocols, creating a scalable approach that can be replicated in other municipalities facing similar post-disaster assessment challenges.

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