UNO-PLUS Helps 'Fight The Blight'

UNO professor Michelle Thompson with Mayor Mitch Landrieu at ‘Fight the Blight’ day in Hoffman Triangle.

Michelle Thompson, a University of New Orleans planning and urban studies professor, appeared with Mayor Mitch Landrieu at a March 19 event in the Hoffman Triangle neighborhood in conjunction with the city’s second “Fight the Blight” volunteer day. Mayor Landrieu has set out a goal of eliminating up to 10,000 blighted or vacant properties over the next three years.
 
Thompson’s announcement focused on the work of the UNO Department of Planning and Urban Studies (UNO-PLUS), which has launched WhoData.org, a community data internet mapping service that allows citizen groups to contribute and track information on the progress of New Orleans’ neighborhoods. WhoData.org empowers these groups by providing them with a collaborative property mapping application that enables residents to highlight properties that show indicators of blight. UNO-PLUS is supporting the “Flight the Blight” effort by training residents and volunteers to collect property condition surveys around the city.

At the event in Hoffman Triangle, Thompson brought sample maps showing the condition of fair and poor buildings in the neighborhood from 2008-2011. All of the survey results and photographs can be viewed for free at WhoData.org and are available to the city at no cost.