DETROIT, MI --When Detroit Chief Information Officer Beth Niblock arrived in Detroit from Louisville, Ky. about a year ago with the goal of upgrading Detroit's information technology, she says some departments were using Windows NT 3.1, an operating system released in 1993.


On Thursday, city officials revealed a huge technological leap that allows huge chucks of once-difficult-to-access data -- building permits, property ownership and sales information, demolition statuses, reported crimes and more -- available online to the public.


The website containing the information is data.detroitmi.gov.


Niblcock said this is just the first step in an ongoing open data initiative that she hopes will make data as easy to access as it is in other advanced cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle.
The public safety section offers crime mapping and tools to map and sort reported crimes in real time as it's entered into the Detroit Police Department system. A short crime description and the address where the crime occurred is provided back through January 2014.

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...l#incart_river

TONS of info on the site.