Culture & Community Innovation Award
The Holmes Project brings people together around a shared understanding of Philadelphia's housing and connectivity crises. By making complex civic data accessible, explainable, and actionable, we empower communities to advocate for themselves and plan their own futures.
Philadelphia has thousands of vacant, blighted properties and entire neighborhoods without reliable internet access. Both crises are well-documented and the data exists, but it's scattered across city databases and impossible to act on without the right tools to make sense of it.
The window for community-centered intervention is narrow. As neighborhoods deteriorate, long-term residents are pushed out by deteriorating conditions - then priced out when speculative investment eventually arrives. Data-driven tools like this platform exist to open that window wider.
The goal is to put the same quality of civic intelligence that developers and consultants take for granted into the hands of the city agencies, nonprofits, and community organizations who actually need it.
Blight and displacement go hand in hand. As neighborhoods deteriorate, long-term residents are pushed out by deteriorating conditions - then priced out when speculative investment eventually arrives.
The neighborhoods hit hardest by vacant properties and housing blight are the same ones losing the connectivity battle. It is not a coincidence - it is the same disinvestment showing up in two different datasets.
Data-driven tools exist to open the window wider for community-centered intervention. The policy brief generator turns data into actionable recommendations for community organizers, city planners, and anyone who needs to make the case for intervention.
"He mapped our beginning. We map our present."
In 1683, Thomas Holme laid a grid across a swampy river peninsula and called it Philadelphia. As William Penn's Surveyor General, he didn't draw mere lines on parchment - he mapped a future, ensuring the city would grow with intentionality.
The Holmes Project carries his name as both tribute and mission. Just as Holme mapped Philadelphia's future in 1683, we map the city's modern stress signals so Philadelphia can plan its next chapter. This creates a shared cultural narrativeconnecting Philadelphia's founding vision with contemporary civic responsibility.
We position residents as participants in a 340-year conversation about equitable city design - framing the housing crisis not as inevitability, but as a breakdown of civic intention that can be repaired.
Holmes creates shared visual language and collaborative infrastructure where all stakeholders can work together toward collective growth.
Holmes explicitly surfaces systemic inequity patterns by showing how communities face compounding disadvantages across both housing AND connectivity access. The same disinvestment shows up in two different datasets.
Complex housing and connectivity data is translated into plain language so communities can understand and act on it without requiring technical expertise. Holmes speaks like a knowledgeable friend, not a bureaucrat.
The Holmes Project operates at the intersection of data science, civic responsibility, and community empowerment. By making the invisible visible, we create environments where communities can thrive together.