By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – UB's Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth rolled out its new, interactive informational web site Tuesday.
The Regional Knowledge Network is a state-of-the-art web site provides detailed, customizable data for the entire bi-national region of Western New York. Ten topic areas are available -- covering everything from government and economy to education and the environment. Users have a choice of web tools to pull up a variety of data, spreadsheets and maps. Kate Foster is Director of the Institute. She says good -- unvarnished -- information leads to good decisions for the region.
"We try to find a wide range of information that tells the story by saying, some of these things look terrific, we're really moving forward in some areas - our civic capacity, our regional assets look very strong, and notice that," said Foster. "And at the same time, not try to cover up the fact that there are areas where we have issues of poverty, or we have issues of low test scores, or we have issues that we really want folks to think of in terms of health. Because it helps to catalyze public policy choices, and also to get us focused on, and helping to frame and understand our choices as we move forward on the issues that really matter."
The site includes contact information and links to web sites for hundreds of municipalities and organizations. Data and dynamic mapping are now available in four of the topic areas, and will be added to the others in the coming months. Users can cross-reference and customize the information they need. Subbiah Mantharam is Project Director. He says that's what makes the site is unique.
"Having this type of a site, that bridges those elements together, tries to be able to tell you the type of stories that you can," said Mantharam. "Because, how these topic areas and how these data sets really relate to each other, and what comes from that, I think will be a valuable asset."
The Institute says hopes the site will become the one stop shop for information for everyone from students and researchers, to business and government leaders.