Community Atlas (www.communityatlas.org)

You have reached the web page of the Community Atlas project currently under development at the Florida Center for Community Design and Research at the University of South Florida. The project has been launched in Hillsborough County, Florida. Funders of the Community Atlas include Hillsborough County Public Works ( http://www.hillsboroughcounty.org/publicworks/) and the Children's Board of Hillsborough County ( http://www.childrensboard.org). If you would like to become involved in the Hillsborough Community Atlas project or information about starting a community atlas in your area, contact B. Terry Johnson, AICP, via e-mail or 813-974-1506.

The Hillsborough Community Atlas (www.hillsborough.communityatlas.org) is a website that presents quality-assured data and information concerning community conditions in a format that the public can easily access and understand. Information is presented by community/neighborhood along with detailed explanations of what agency provides the data or service, what the data means, and why it is important. Interactive on-line maps further enhance the utility of the website by allowing citizens to view the information spatially and compare communities within Hillsborough County.

Similar to an Atlas that would be published as a book, the Community Atlas website presents information as maps, tables, charts and narrative text. However, unlike a book that requires a long period of time for publication and distribution, the Community Atlas is able to make data available on the website as it is made public. What this means is that people are able to access the most up-to-date data that is available about Hillsborough communities.

The Hillsborough Community Atlas launched in January 2006. Even though the website is now live to the public it remains a work in progress that requires the addition of more data and maintenance of the information it contains.

Previous Work:

If you're interested in seeing some of the work completed as part of earlier projects leading up to the development of the Hillsborough Community Atlas, please use the links below:

Tampa Bay Community Indicator Assessment

Community Atlas - Previous Site

Future Work:

The Florida Center developed the Hillsborough Community Atlas to be a dynamic application that can incorporate new data sources and be transferred to other communities. If you would like to become involved with the project in Hillsborough County or would like information on developing a new Community Atlas in your community, please contact: