Coming soon to a neighborhood near you: CIS, the Community Information System. It's a blockbuster of data so large you couldn't hold it in your hands.

		Graphic: Map-based tool for analysis of Pittsburgh

Developed for the city by an academic and nonprofit partnership, CIS is a map-based computer tool that lets the user see real-time conditions on any property. Planners can spot trends and patterns of use and misuse, see potential for improved use and where planning now can reduce problems later.

The equivalent of 40 encyclopedic tomes of public record from more than 20 sources, the Web-based CIS is a one-stop shop that will cut research from months or years to days or even hours and give planners a long view of the lay of the land. For example, you can see a map that shows all vacant buildings in the city, a map that shows all tax-delinquent properties in the city, and then a color-coded overlay to let you see how the two correspond to each other.

"It's a way for the city to plan smarter, faster, with more accuracy and accountability," said Dorothy Lengyel, executive director of the Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development, the mother ship from which CIS is getting ready to launch.

The city recently signed a sharing agreement with those who developed and invested in it -- the Partnership, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. CIS will be installed early next year, said Howard Stern, the city's chief information officer.

It is being touted as "a wonderful tool" by city officials, neighborhood advocates and those who created it for less than $100,000, none of it city money. Councilman Doug Shields has called it "probably the single most important invention to hit the city in 50 years."

CIS will not be available for walk-up use in libraries or by private companies. It will be distributed to neighborhood advocacy groups, most of them community development corporations, all nonprofits.

Dan Murrer, vice president of RealSTATs, made a pitch for wider sharing at a recent City Council meeting. RealSTATs sells real estate information and has done business with the city, he said.

"All we're asking for is equal play," he said. "If [nonprofits] have exclusive access, they prevent anyone else from competing with them. We provide statistics so you can analyze trends, too. All we would like is the ability to integrate other stats with our data."

Council did not address his request.

"Our agreement with the city doesn't allow us to benefit private interests," said Grant Ervin, CIS project manager. "It's a tool for the public good, for neighborhoods to improve community-based decisions. It's not designed as a tool someone can profit from."

Ms. Lengyel said the system would be "rolled out, a few [neighborhoods] at a time," first to neighborhoods "at the height of their planning needs" and those that have asked for it. An all-out distribution isn't possible, she said, because technical support will be necessary in the first months of use.

CIS is not complete. It doesn't have transit information. It still needs an overlay of lot and block numbers. Its dimensions will grow as demands for its use grow, Mr. Ervin said.

One of the most eager to log on is Kate Trimble, executive director of the Lawrenceville Corp., a self-described "data jockey" from her days in urban policy research at the Brookings Institution. "I love CIS and I can't wait to get it," she said. "Cities that have these kinds of tools are so much better prepared to understand their markets and the conditions of their neighborhoods."

One of Lawrenceville's big issues in the coming decade will be the turnover of houses now owned by older people. "CIS is going to help us target acquisitions on a parcel-by-parcel level," she said. It isn't just a tool for dealing with problems, though. "It can make a case for investors and concretely demonstrate the assets you have."

Oakland Development and Planning Corp. is trying to strengthen housing, in part for blue-collar workers, many of whom work at nearby colleges and universities but are overshadowed by a transient student population. CIS will change the whole concept of targeting, said David Blenk, executive director of the Oakland group.

"The way we've always done it was the 'windshield tour.' You can see on the street what the problems are, but when you can see [on CIS] multiple layers where fires have been, where police incidents are, where property sales are transient, all that layering can tell you stories.

"I'm anxiously awaiting it."

Ed Gainey, the mayor's special projects manager, said CIS will help with the city's rebirth. "It will be a more structured means" of planning, he said. "Housing drives stability in a neighborhood, and [through CIS] you can definitely see patterns."

CIS users can click from a map of the city to a neighborhood, then to one naked property. The property's story gets more complete the more layers you add, and you can zoom out to compare properties. Which ones are vacant? Which are vacant with tax liens? Which are vacant with liens and condemned? Which have environmental citations plus building code violations plus liens? Which are owner-occupied? Which have had more than 20 calls to 911 in the past year? Where are the concentrations of these ills? And how does all this compare with a decade ago?

Mr. Ervin, of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, is credited with the idea that led to CIS when he managed the vacant property work group for the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group. He said it took "years of legwork and community organization."

After a national conference on blight in 2002, the vacant-property work group held a national symposium on abandoned property in Pittsburgh to which more than 300 people came. It fueled local advocates' desire for an all-encompassing data bank to be used for smart, neighborhood-driven growth.

Mr. Ervin organized roundtables for regional planners, engineers, mappers, neighborhood activists and academics.

Last year, when he took the job as project manager at 10,000 Friends, a coalition of smart-growth and preservation organizations, Ms. Lengyel gave him an office Downtown at the Partnership for Neighborhood Development.

CIS started as a modest attempt to help the city and neighborhoods fight blight, but it kept blooming, one category of information begging for the next, said Mr. Ervin. The city departments that will share in the use will be responsible for updating data every few months.

"We will do everything we can to keep it timely, accurate and maintain its integrity," said Mr. Stern, adding, "It absolutely will save the city" time and money. "We're so glad they developed this because, obviously, we don't have the resources.

"It looks promising," he said. "Obviously, some neighborhoods will use it more than others, and the ones that do will be able to take a stand."