HTL Produces A Series Of State Gazetteers With Community Profiles For Neighborhoods, Cities, Towns, And Counties

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Below is our recent interview with Matt Smith, President & CEO at HomeTownLocator:

Q: Can you tell us something more about the company and what you do?

A: HomeTownLocator.com (HTL) has been a very popular resource for local information for over 14 years. The site has averaged over a million visitors a month since January 2005.

HTL produces a series of state gazetteers with community profiles for neighborhoods, cities, towns, counties and ZIP Codes.

The profiles include boundary maps, school zones, and data concerning population, housing, income, and households. The available information includes such things as housing affordability, diversity, and the percentage of homes that are owner-occupied, renter-occupied, or vacant.

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Q: What are the benefits of using your platform?

A: You could easily spend days trying to research the data and trying to gain the perspective necessary to properly characterize any one of the 318,000 different administrative, census or geographical units included in the HTL gazetteers.

The gazetteers integrate the data and make it very easy to find. You gain perspective on characterizing the area by having reliable current demographic data as well as knowing historical changes that have occurred and forecasts of expected changes over the next five years. Being easily able to do peer comparisons and rankings further enhances your perspective.

The major benefit is that what would take days using other methods can be done in a few minutes on HomeTownLocator.

Q: What search options and tools are available to choose from?

A: The most popular search method is the HTL Address Research Tool. You simply input the address and in less then 3 seconds you’ll be informed which school attendance zones include that address and you’ll have links to school profiles for the applicable Elementary, Middle and High School.

You’ll also be presented with links to profiles for the applicable:

1.Neighborhood (census block group)

2.City, town, village or Census Designated Place

3.County Subdivision (typically, a Township or County Census Subdivision)

4.County or County Equivalent

5.ZIP Code

There is even a tool to do exactly the same type of search when you don’t have an address! You simply mark a location on a map; we’ll determine the coordinates for that location and provide you with a hyperlink to the HTL Address Research Tool that using the nearest address to that location.

You can also do the obvious searches by city, town, or county name and you can also search by ZIP Code.

You can also browse for locations by selecting:

• A county from all of those in the state
• A city or town from all of those in a specific county
• A ZIP Code from all of those for a specific city
• A school from all of these in a specific county

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Q: How often do you update your information?

A:

• The geographic data for physical and cultural features is updated 6 times per year
• The ZIP Code database is updated 4 times per year
• The ZIP Code maps are updated 4 times per year
• The School Attendance Zone Maps are updated 4 times per year
• The Census Demographic Data and the 5-year forecast is updated annually

Q: What can we expect from HomeTownLocator in the future?

A: The information needs for the mobile phone user are different than it is for someone working with a larger display on a tablet or desktop computer. We are working hard on trying to fully understand the mobile user’s requirements to better serve them.