How Bloomington Uses ArcGIS to Explore Housing Growth

Across the United States, communities are grappling with familiar housing questions. Where is growth happening? How are neighborhoods changing? What land can realistically support future homes?

In Bloomington, Indiana, one of the state’s fastest-growing communities and home to Indiana University, those questions are becoming increasingly important. To help everyone work from the same information, Bloomington’s geographic information system (GIS) team created a public Housing Explorer that brings demographic, zoning, permit, and land-use information together in one interactive site.

The experience supports city planning staff, elected officials, regional partners, and residents by providing a shared view of housing data. Instead of relying on separate spreadsheets, reports, or parcel records, users can explore information in one place and move from broad questions about population and housing to more specific conversations about density, redevelopment, and development potential. 

The idea began with a straightforward request from Bloomington’s planning and transportation director. The director wanted city demographic data to support city council discussions, including census information about population, housing, median income, and age. The GIS team could have answered with an email or a spreadsheet, but the request pointed to a better way to communicate the data. The GIS team saw an opportunity to let people explore the information geographically, including the ability to click on a census tract and see details in context.

The team considered the best format for the work and chose to combine ArcGIS Dashboards with ArcGIS Experience Builder. Dashboards gave the city a strong way to display data, charts, and maps, while Experience Builder provided a framework for organizing related views into a public-facing site. Because census tracts do not stop neatly at the city boundary, the team expanded the initial view to include the whole county instead of trying to calculate partial tract percentages for Bloomington alone. The site was then shared with the county surveyor’s office and the regional metropolitan planning organization, extending the value of the resource beyond city staff.

What started as a demographic tool quickly became a broader planning resource. Once the data was visible, new questions followed. Planning staff wanted to understand how parcels were categorized in different housing zones, where housing types were concentrated, and what existing density looked like in neighborhoods throughout Bloomington. Those questions led the GIS team to add tabs, maps, and datasets that could help people examine housing from multiple angles without leaving the same experience.

As the Housing Explorer evolved, Bloomington was also examining housing options such as accessory dwelling units, known as ADUs, and missing middle housing. Planning staff asked the GIS team to map ADUs, plexes, and demolition permits. The layers helped reveal a pattern: Properties demolished in Bloomington are often small single-family homes in poor condition and are commonly replaced by plexes.

By showing demolition permits alongside new housing types, the explorer gave planners a clearer way to see redevelopment activity and understand how neighborhoods were changing.

The next question was more difficult: where does Bloomington have vacant land that could support future housing? At first, that sounds like a simple parcel query. In practice, the data required careful interpretation. A parcel can be classified as vacant for tax purposes even when a structure exists on it, and parcel classifications do not always match current use. To make the information more useful, the team cross-referenced county vacancy data with building footprints created from aerial imagery and lidar. The team also tied parcels to the number of addresses associated with them, which helped staff understand housing patterns that parcel class codes alone could not explain.

Permitting data added another important layer. Bloomington uses Esri partner Tyler Technologies’s Enterprise Permitting & Licensing (EPL) software to manage permits as projects move through review. When permit activity becomes something that exists in the built environment, the GIS team brings that information into GIS. Automated Python scripts run through the city’s ArcGIS environment and publish hosted data to ArcGIS Online nightly, keeping the public version current while reducing manual effort. The city maintains most internal data and staff applications in ArcGIS Enterprise and uses ArcGIS Pro for advanced mapping, analytics, and data management. Public information is moved to ArcGIS Online, where the Housing Explorer can be shared publicly and where dashboards are embedded in Experience Builder pages.

For Bloomington, the Housing Explorer is not only a public information site. It is becoming a shared reference point for policy conversations, permit modernization, and long-range planning. The planning department recently audited the permitting system with the goal of making permits more efficient and timely for residents, and the Housing Explorer was discussed as part of those conversations. The city also plans a major permitting update in the next fiscal year to help speed up development. Existing geospatial checks already flag areas such as flood zones and historic districts, which helps route permits to the right people in the process.

The explorer also supports conversations about how zoning changes could affect existing neighborhoods. Bloomington has active community engagement, and local discussions about housing can involve competing priorities such as increasing housing options, conserving historic neighborhoods, protecting tree canopy, and understanding where multifamily housing already exists. In that context, a map does not decide policy, but it gives everyone a clearer picture of the conditions being discussed. Staff can compare density, housing type, zoning, permits, and vacant land in a single experience instead of relying on disconnected records.

Looking ahead, the GIS team wants to refine the question of developable land. The goal is to move beyond whether a parcel is labeled vacant and focus on which parcels, or portions of parcels, can actually be built on. That requires considering factors such as existing structures, parcel context, slope, zoning, and known development activity. Some land may look vacant but may be constrained by nearby infrastructure or terrain. Other parcels may contain structures but still have enough open area to support future housing. By continuing to improve the Housing Explorer with geospatial data and context, Bloomington can turn a recurring planning question into an evidence-based conversation about where housing can realistically be added.

The result is a practical example of how ArcGIS technologies can support housing planning as questions become more complex. A request for census data became an interactive tool for exploring demographics. That tool grew into a public experience for examining zoning, permits, redevelopment, density, and development potential. For city leaders and planning professionals facing similar housing pressures, Bloomington’s approach shows the importance of building a flexible GIS foundation. When new questions arise, the city can add data, create a new view, and help stakeholders understand what is happening on the ground.