A Roadmap for Inner City Business Data Collection

Small businesses are significant job creators, particularly in distressed inner city neighborhoods. And yet, information on businesses, especially in inner cities is often incomplete.

ICIC’s recent study of the accuracy of business data in Boston discovered startling inconsistencies between public and commercial databases:
• 43% of businesses in a leading commercial database were not found in public city and state databases.
• A walking inventory of commercial districts in inner city Boston revealed that 30% of businesses in the commercial database did not exist, and new businesses were identified that were not included in the database.

Insufficient small business data creates barriers for cities to connect their small businesses with support resources. It also hinders the efficacy of private sector "buy-local" efforts.

To address this issue, ICIC developed a roadmap to help cities identify business information gaps and collect more comprehensive data on local businesses. The roadmap includes recommendations for building a business directory, finding the right partners and utilizing crowdsourcing.

Download A Roadmap for Inner City Business Data Collection


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