I chose to view the data of the Building and Safety Permit Information in Los Angeles. Permits are to be issued for the construction, remodeling, and repair of buildings in the City of Los Angeles by the Department of Building and Safety. The permits are categorized into three sections: building permits, electrical permits, and mechanical permits and depending on the complexity of the project may be received as early as the same day or in a couple weeks.
This dataset consists of 700k rows and 56 columns. Ranging from information including the lot number to the contractor’s license number, this is a very detailed dataset. The person or organization that created this data obviously wanted to be very thorough with the information they had as it includes a wealth of information involving the permit, land information, and even the contractor’s information. They did a good job as there is little to no other information that is missing from this dataset, they covered just about everything in relation to getting a building permit.
The City of Los Angeles would find this information most useful. This is because they can use this information to make sure and check if a certain property owner has legally gone through the process of getting a building permit for whatever they have built on their property. To the average person, this dataset would seem confusing and the terms would not make sense so it’s only logical that a third party organization that’s involved in the permit process, or the City of Los Angeles finds this data most utilizing.
The dataset can tell me a wealth of information about the entire building permit process. Just through viewing the dataset, it tells me that receiving a permit is not a simple process and that there are several factors and processes involved in doing so. Everything must be recorded and legit including names, dates, addresses, valid licenses, etc. As for as the information left out of this dataset, I am not too familiar with the permit process and could not really find anything that was left out.
If I were to start over with the data provided and describe an ontology, I would probably make is similar but would make it simpler as all this information can be confusing to some. I would combine some columns such as names to cut down on how vast the data seems to the viewer.
Nice post! I think you’re right in that the dataset was very confusing. The info would be useful to the city and developers, but harder for average citizens to understand.