Week 3: Listing of Active Businesses in L.A.

The dataset of the Listing of Active Businesses from the City of L.A. is a listing of all active business “currently registered” with the Office of Finance. According to the website’s description, an active business is one that is “a registered business whose owner has not notified the Office of Finance of a cease of business operators.” The data was created on May 21, 2014 and is updated monthly, with its last update on October 17, 2017.

Its categories are broken down into:

• • Location Account #: The account number of the business location.
  • Business Name: The legal name of the business.
  • DBA Name: Doing Business As (DBA) name. If more than one DBA name exists, then all names are shown as a pipe-separated list.
  • Street Address: The street address of the business location.
  • City: The city of the business location.
  • Zip Code: The zip code of the business location
  • Location Description: The abbreviated address description of the business location.
  • Mailing Address: The mailing address of the business.
  • Mailing City: The abbreviated address description of the business location.
  • Mailing Zip Code: The mailing address Zip code of the business.
  • NAICS: The self-reported North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code, which is used in classifying business establishments.
  • Primary NAICS Description: The description of the primary NAICS code. Descriptions that are noted as “(1997 NAICS)” apply the code and description designated in 1997 as referred to in the New Business Exemption Ordinance.
  • Council District: The council district # reflects the current council district assignment for that location address. “0” means the business location is out of the City.
  • Location Start Date: The start date of the first business activity registered at this location.
  • Location End Date: The most recent end date of all business activities at the location.
  • Location: The Latitude and Longitude, if present, for this business location.

This ontology makes the most sense to urban city planners, or perhaps other business owners and entrepreneurs who want to open their own businesses around the city of Los Angeles. It may be helpful to see where there is a concentrated area of grocery markets, or retail stores, or restaurants; or an up-and-coming neighborhood with lots of businesses opening at similar start dates.

If I were to start over with the data-collection, I would try to include more useful information for the citizens of Los Angeles––not just those with government jobs and political power. The dataset would have more user-friendly, specific categories based off the Primary NAICS Descriptions. For example, I noticed that the data on grocery and convenience stores is merged together with no distinctions. I would also make sure that the Latitude and Longitude is as accurate as possible because many locations lead to grey areas or the middle of the street on Google Maps. Better yet, it would be great if I could hyperlink the coordinates to a digital, interactive map (such as Google Maps or Waze Maps).