To fight blight, you need to understand blight – location, density, types of buildings, why it occurred, and markers indicating potential new blight. Critical to data collection is data sharing amongst different government departments and authorities to develop a complete compliance or non-compliance record of each property. Municipalities need to determine how to use this data to identify blight or properties that could become blighted without intervention. Mapping and visually inspecting properties are important in quantifying and inventorying blight. There are different ways to visually inspect and inventory properties. Data collected from inventorying/surveying properties can be combined with other data sources and mapping technology to establish a complete picture of blight in a municipality. With this complete picture, municipalities can best determine the community appropriate approach to address blight. It also provides a baseline from which to measure progress in eliminating blight.
