An encyclopedia for builders, not residents

Contribute to NYC civic tech in hours, not weeks.

NYC government is 50+ agencies, overlapping jurisdictions, and knowledge that lives in people's heads. This is a curated map of its data landscape — what exists, whether it's usable, how to access it, and how the decisions get made.

Pick a civic problem ↓ Browse the Directory

Annotated, not just linkedWhat it is · best for · watch out for · what the data looks like.

Data-landscape firstEvery source flags API / bulk / web-only and official vs. independent.

Shows sources in usePlaybooks walk you from a real question through the sources, step by step.

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What do you want to do?

Pick a civic problem and get a shortlist of 3–5 annotated sources — enough to name where to look without asking a veteran. Each shortlist is copyable straight into a hackathon README.

I am a…

This problem picker needs JavaScript. You can still browse every source on the Directory and the concepts in The Lay of the Land.

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How this guide is built

A directory that teaches

The Lay of the Land →Plain-language entries that teach who owns what and how a decision actually moves. The Directory →The curated source catalog — annotated and filterable by category, audience, and data access. Playbooks →Four worked scenarios that show the sources used together, step by step.

Source descriptions are ground truth from the product brief, researched and accurate as of June 2026. Every link was checked to resolve before shipping; time-sensitive facts are left out so the guide stays maintainable. Anything we couldn't verify is flagged, not guessed.