Every day, private sector companies capture valuable information in cities. When someone checks out on a food delivery app, swipes a credit card at the bodega or taps their phone to pay for a taxi, we and other companies capture and analyze that transaction data to reveal important trends.

Cities themselves also aggregate important data, including on how their citizens get around, school attendance, and where people receive treatment when they become ill.

For urban policymakers, the ability to tap into both private and public sector data can be powerful. There is now an abundance of aggregated information with the potential to transform city policies and impact measurements and potentially improve all sorts of socioeconomic outcomes. The hope is that better use of data will lead to better policymaking to meet some of the growing challenges of cities, such as increasing inequality, changing demographics and strained public services, to name but a few.

Read the full article about private sector data for urban growth at mastercardcenter.org