On April 10, 2024 Mayor Cherelle Parker signed her ninth executive order of the year establishing the Office of Philly Stat 360. Eight months later, when Philly Stat 360 officially launched, Parker said: “Philly Stat 360 is not only a tool for measuring progress but also for identifying areas where we need to invest more resources.”
So what exactly is Philly Stat 360? And how does it help Philadelphians?
Essentially, Philly Stat 360 is a data aggregator and their job is to report on a collection of city agencies in a way that is accessible to the public. Upon launch, the Philly Stat 360 hub was designed to present data in five categories specific to Parker’s agenda — safer, cleaner, greener, economic opportunity, and core services.
“She’s talked about making the city the safest, the cleanest, the greenest city with access to economic opportunity for all. So really showing how the mayor is delivering her vision is important,” said Kristin Bray, Chief Legal Counsel to the Mayor and head of Philly Stat 360.
Bray has a few goals for the Philly Stat 360 program; she hopes it informs Philadelphians on “what their government is doing, why we are doing it, and how we are doing it.” But she also envisions it being an “accountability forum that government departments and government agencies in the city of Philadelphia (that shows they) are delivering on the services and promises that Mayor Parker made.”
Currently on the site, you’re able to see information ranging from the amount of speed cushions installed to the amount of fatal overdoses in the city. However, the rates at which the information is updated is inconsistent. Under the “Safer” category the platform shows that 89 speed cushions were installed in September 2024, but for fatal overdoses it gives the annual figure from 2023, which was 1,308.
“We’re gonna be updating real time over a monthly basis,” explained Bray, “because we think that cadence makes the most sense. We’re hoping to do it much more quickly and much more fully as the program continues to build out.”
Philly Stat 360 has plans to grow beyond those five initial categories.
“We’re talking about that right now. I don’t wanna get ahead of my mayor, but we’re talking about how we can better expand. We’re definitely going to be adding more metrics to the website itself within each of those categories,” said Bray.
Much of the data presented on Philly Stat 360 is available through other sources, like OpenDataPhilly which similarly to Philly Stat 360 was established by former Mayor Michael Nutter through Executive Order. The difference between the two Philly data hubs are ease and accessibility.
OpenDataPhilly has dense reports and data sets suited for a college student writing a research paper. Philly Stat 360 is a simple to read tool that everyday Philadelphians can use to understand their city. Bray said that the site’s accessibility was a source of pride, noting that Philly Stat 360’s graphics were designed with shades of blue and gray specifically to be legible for the color-blind.
“There’s a lot of other really cool features behind the scenes to make the website as easily accessible for all Philadelphians. I’m really proud of that because that took us quite a bit of time, but it was important,” Bray told Metro.
Philly Stat 360 was announced and launched within an eight month span. During that time Bray explained that she met with experts doing similar work across the country and that the new office has some strong connections.
“For example, we work with the National Policing Institute, we also work with Bloomberg’s ‘What Works Cities’ and a number of other countries and municipalities to make sure that we picked the best processes that are out there in the country and develop them much better,” Bray explained.
In order to get the word out about Philly Stat 360, Bray said the office will “go out into community meetings and into the new community action centers that the mayor has.”
