This Brookings Institution-sponsored Urban Markets Initiative project is prototyping and testing an 'intelligent middleware' approach for sharing data within a metropolitan area in a manner that is intended to be more effective, scalable, and sustainable than the traditional ‘data center' approach. The proposed tools and methods provide a mechanism for accumulating and utilizing local knowledge about neighborhood-scale land use, ownership, and market potential.

The basic idea is to isolate and codify the local knowledge from both the official datasets and from the definition of maps and reports that build useful community indicators. The local knowledge is codified as 'business rules' that produce virtual tables (called facades) when applied to the read-only official data (called basetables). Reports and Thematic maps that use these facades can be defined and saved as if the facades were permanent tables. However, the facade rules can be changed independently of running the maps and reports, or swapping in new versions of the basetables.

The system is implemented using web services and open source software on a linux server with access control for users and groups at the level of individual facades and reports. Use of web services with XML messaging and Open Geospatial Consortium protocols enables distributed access from a variety of desktop applications including MS-Excel, Google maps, ArcGIS, and ordinary browsers. Login via this page provides access to a suite of facade and report management tools that utilize the web services from an ordinary web browser using javascript and so-called AJAX (asymmetric javascript and XML) programming.

To register for an account, send email to metro@mit.edu.