Data Portal - The Lender Center for Social Justice

Designing a Multi-Systems Approach to “Wealth Gaps” and Data-Driven Economic Opportunities

Welcome to the Lender Center’s Data Portal and its multi-sector dashboards. This project is designed to support university-community collaborations to increase our shared knowledge and understanding of economic opportunities and “wealth gaps” at a dynamic historical moment of social and technological change. Users can find data and information about multiple dimensions of economic inclusion and development to facilitate shared understanding, collaboration, and creative interventions to decrease or remove barriers.

Data

The project uses and integrates data at various levels: U.S. public national datasets, from the U.S. Census Bureau surveys, among others, as well as state and local-municipal data resources, and, ultimately, data collected and shared by our local community organizational partners. The portal is built to be accessible to everyone and all types of users.

Approach

The research team uses a complex, multi-system understanding of socioeconomic opportunities, exploring how diverse systems and sectors (e.g., education, housing, region, employment, health, arts & culture) interact to create both opportunities and barriers in accessing resources. Using an interdisciplinary, multisystem, and community-engaged approach to explore economic opportunity is timely, as it addresses what some social scientists worry is a fading American Dream and as our own Central New York (CNY) region is poised for significant investment and growth, given Micron’s historic investment as the nation’s largest semiconductor manufacturing facility in the region.

Project Goals

The mission of the Lender Center for Social Justice, as part of the research university, is to advance knowledge for the public good, which includes our local and regional communities. The Lender Center is committed to research partnerships with community-based organizations and community stakeholders as co-collaborators in addressing the region’s most pressing issues and opportunities. The Lender Data Portal and its dashboards are available to all to identify opportunities for research, projects, and potential partnerships.