Each year, the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation supports communities across Georgia through the Georgia Smart Communities Challenge community research assistance program. Georgia Smart empowers communities to envision and plan for a smarter future by providing opportunities to work with Georgia Tech and university researchers to advance local initiatives. In 2020, the City of Savannah was one of four communities supported by Georgia Smart for their “Civic Data Science for Equitable Development” project.

Savannah estimates that every abandoned, blighted property in this historic city bleeds approximately $1,300 of public funds annually. Despite its reputation for beautifully restored historic homes, there are approximately 4,286 vacant dwellings, likely blighted and abandoned in the Savannah metropolitan area, costing taxpayers millions of dollars annually. These funds are largely unrecoverable costs incurred for addressing overgrown grass, litter, illegal dumping, securing open structures and demolishing properties, and lost property tax revenue. Over the last year, the City of Savannah has explored applications of emerging data analytics and machine learning techniques to leverage existing city data to guide decisions on the best strategy to deal with vacant and blighted properties in the community. 

1 CM Credit

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