Chinatown

For community organizations serving the Chinese and Chinese American neighborhoods in American cities, we are an initiative leveraging the power of digital tools and spatial data analytics to help them document place identity, visualize housing challenges and opportunities, and incubate a sense of local belonging.

Work

Building tools

"the G Suite for community organizations"

See how we build them

Chinatown

Historical Trail

EXPERIENCE

After collecting historically significant spots in Chinatown from multiple data sources, we create the Historical Trail, which features the immigrant history and the development of Chinatown.

Chinatown

Data Portal

Fed with data from BPDA, MassBuild, BidUp, and AirDNA, the Data Portal visualizes housing challenges and opportunities in Chinatown, while providing online analytical functions.

BIG DATA

WOW Chinatown

Under the pandemic of COVID-19, we are distanced from the places we love and we go to normally. WOW Chinatown, a mini-program embedded in WeChat, allows people to input the places in Boston Chinatown they would love to go after the pandemic. This would help us better understand the social meanings of the places.

ENGAGEMENT

Take a look at our prototype!

Interview

Data Collector

MICRO DATA

Built with Google Forms' engine, this Data Collector saves a huge amount of time of interviewers by digitalizing the paper and pen process. This tool is compatible with mobile phones, pads, and laptops.

Where

We Visit

Supported by a big data company, we identify and protect popular local businesses in Chinatown by capturing the spatial-temporal patterns of mobile phone data.

BIG DATA

Where We Visit

COMING SOON!

CoMap

Chinatown

Working with Sasaki Strategy, we build a collaborative mapping program that generates a spatial visualization of how people experience Chinatown.

ENGAGEMENT

Building Permit Identifier

To identify illegal or non-standard short-term rental units, the Identifier will automatically access the ISD database and compare the permitted usage and actual uses by optical character recognition powered by Google Cloud.

BIG DATA

Building Permit Identifier

COMING SOON!

Team

Our Team

who really care

Learn more about our team and research network

We are a group of passionate researchers and designers from MIT and Harvard University.

We work with local community partners, such as Chinatown Progressive Association and the Community Land Trust, and build tools to engage lower-income and aging communities in the urban planning process using digital platforms, which better collects inputs from local residents and visualize challenges and opportunities.

Our Partners

who trust us