Since it launched in 2006, the Pittsburgh Neighborhood and Community Information System has become the hub around which neighborhood movers and shakers flock for all the juicy details.

More than 300 people from 130 organizations -- a variety of nonprofits in development and neighborhood advocacy -- have been trained to use the computer-based property mapping tool, the equivalent of 40 encyclopedic tomes of public record from more than 20 sources.

Housed at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Social and Urban Research, where Bob Gradeck is its full-time manager, PNCIS shows conditions of properties, trends, demographics, histories and patterns of use and misuse. It is updated quarterly so that when a neighborhood advocacy group is ready to tackle, say, a problem of blight, it can see the color-coded issues relevant to that blight in real time and in one sitting.

Its data has fed Garfield's 20-year land use plan, the progress of the Homewood Children's Village, the Hilltop Alliance's public safety plan and dozens of site-specific inquiries.

The system has more than 100 overlays of data that were public record before, but widely scattered. PNCIS is cutting research time from months to days or hours.

Urban design architects from Perkins Eastman, hired to help Garfield build its 20-year land use plan, found the system invaluable in identifying property trends, including property conditions overlaid with the age of inhabitants, said Stefani Danes, who prepared the plan with Nadeene Anti for Bloomfield-Garfield Corp.

She said PNCIS is and will largely be a godsend for neighborhood organizations operating on a shoestring.

"In the past, the cost of gathering and analyzing data was so high, it was only possible maybe every five years to hire someone to do it," she said. A trend that's four years out may be too far along to act on by then.

"PNCIS has radically changed the ability of neighborhood organizations to act in a timely way, to shift focus and be more effective with resources," she said. "If you act at the right time, it doesn't take nearly as much money."

When the PNCIS team began mapping data in 2003, the first question was: How many vacant properties are there? By best estimate, Pittsburgh has 20,000 empty parcels and 17,500 vacant structures, Mr. Gradeck said. "As we developed a relationship with the city, we got access to a lot more data -- tax delinquencies, crime, building violations, fires. As we got traction, the data snowballed."

"There is probably no part of the city we haven't touched," he said. "We have training sessions every other week, and after training we give people technical assistance."

To register for training, which is free, contact Mr. Gradeck at pncis@pitt.edu or 412-624-9177.

In Homewood, Pitt social work students working with Operation Better Block have done door-to-door surveys and analyzed property in preparation for the Homewood Children's Village project, which is led by John Wallace, a Pitt professor of social work. Samantha Teixeira, one of his master's students, is his assistant.

The goal of the project is to create a web of comprehensive educational, recreational, medical and social services for children and, by connection, adults, "linked end to end," said Mr. Wallace: "parenting, schooling, health and nutrition, doing for poor kids what middle and upper class parents do for their children naturally." It is modeled after the successful and decades-old Harlem Children's Zone.

In analyzing property, Ms. Teixeira said, "we're trying to find out how the quality of the neighborhood's properties impact children."

In 2009, 68 homes were purchased in the neighborhood, half for less than $5,000, one-tenth of the city average. Ninety percent of the vacant parcels are publicly owned and 57 percent of the taxable parcels were tax delinquent.

One of Homewood's outcomes from using PNCIS was identifying the 30 most awful properties -- called the Dirty 30 -- and mounting a neighborhood campaign to call 311 to urge the city to board them up.

"In a month, 23 of the 30 were boarded up, torn down or improved," said Ms. Teixeira.

Mr. Gradeck asked PNCIS users for feedback on how they are using the system. Lena Andrews of the Urban Redevelopment Authority was one of the respondents.

"We use PNCIS almost every day," she wrote. One way is to "measure the impact of URA brownfield revitalization projects."

"We mapped out major developments, and then overlaid these projects with sales prices and building permit activity over time to see what happens when we invest in a large-scale project. We also use the new mover data to identify who is moving into our projects and where they are coming from. It is an excellent gauge of what markets we are capturing with new construction."

Maureen Hogan, deputy director of the Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development, said the power of the system is its layers.

"If a corner is seen as a problem because kids are hanging out, your initial strategy might be to involve the police," she said. "But when you drill down and look at blocks and individual parcels, there may be a multiplicity of issues that need to be addressed that might make you take a holistic approach."

PNCIS was initiated and launched by the Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development, which has continued to help fund it. Other funds come from Pitt, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership.

Sabina Deitrick, an associate professor at the University Center for Social and Urban Research, said the project could use more benefactors.

"I'd like for someone to give us $50,000 and say, 'Here, expand the system. Hire students.'

"We're looking to expand beyond the county," she said. "One of my goals this year is to have as many students in social work, public health, public and international affairs and urban studies use this system as possible."

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.