Where Data Meets Decision Making in Central Ohio

Tim Fulton 00:00Welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, we have a deep dive into how data shapes decisions across Central Ohio. I sat down with Dave Dixon, the director of data analytics and strategy at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission. Dave oversees the teams responsible for mapping, modeling, and analyzing everything from population growth and housing trends to transportation demand and long-range regional planning. In other words, when leaders across Central Ohio are making decisions about what comes next, Dave and his team are often providing the data behind those choices. We talk about what these data teams actually do day to day, where their data comes from, how local governments and organizations use it in real-world decisions, and why translating raw numbers into usable insights matters just as much as collecting the data in the first place. We also discussed MORPC's growing suite of public data tools, how forecasting shapes planning through 2050, and what the numbers really say about growth, housing, and the region's future, sometimes in ways that challenge common assumptions. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theConfluenceCast.com. This episode is sponsored by MORPC. The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission is Central Ohio's voice as a regional council. With nearly 90 local governments and community partners, they provide nonpartisan data analysis, community resources, and long-range planning. Together, they drive the future prosperity and sustainability of the Central Ohio region. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Dave Dixon, the director of data analytics and strategy at MORPC. Dave, how are you?

Dave Dixon 02:14I'm doing well. Happy New Year. How are you?

Tim Fulton 02:18Happy New Year. I'm doing well. We are here on the occasion right before MORPC's Data Day. Tell us about Data Day.

Dave Dixon 02:25I would love to. So this is our fourth annual Data Day held here in Central Ohio. We'll be welcoming folks from the public sector, nonprofit, academia, private sector consultants — really, data users, data professionals, and decision makers who rely on that data — to join us for a full day over at Columbus State on February 10. We've got a great program for folks, starting with a morning keynote looking at cutting-edge use of data and technology, what C-suite folks are thinking of at our big private sector companies. We've got a lunch session on the future of transit and mobility, and that again will be data-driven, looking at trends, what's been happening, where are things going, what can we expect? There's a lot to celebrate on that front. And we've got 16 breakout sessions throughout the day. What I love about that is it's really our stakeholders and folks in our orbit sharing the great work that they've been doing with data over the past year. So there's some social science findings, some methods. There's really something for everyone. So we hope folks will come out and join us.

Tim Fulton 03:36Talk to me about your role. First of all, what are you doing day to day here?

Dave Dixon 03:41Yeah, so day to day right now, I spend a lot of time on Data Day. But otherwise, I oversee our data, mapping, and modeling teams here at MORPC. To take a step back, MORPC has our hands on a lot of different things. So we do a lot with transportation planning, but we also have environmental sustainability programming. We have housing and community development programming and services. We have an economic development team here now, and we partner on just so many things regionally. So the data and mapping team here at MORPC is really here to support our other departments, our 90 MORPC member governments spread out around Central Ohio, and a slew of other stakeholders. So on the day to day, I would say no day looks the same. We could be working on a regional water study, or we could be doing analysis on housing trends, or we could be doing travel demand forecasting for 2050, looking for bottlenecks in our transportation infrastructure. So it really does depend. But the themes are that data analysis, the mapping, which is like GIS work that we do, as well as modeling, which is mostly around modeling future transportation and travel demand — so looking at volumes on roadways and transit and things like that. So that's the core of it.

Tim Fulton 05:16Where does the data come from? Is this all publicly available stuff? Is it you guys gathering it, to an extent?

Dave Dixon 05:25Yeah, so the answer is both. We rely on a slew of external data sources. We also collect a lot of data from our members and from other entities around the region. We go directly to the public for unique public opinion polls. And then we also create a lot of novel data and analytics. So we take those inputs and we do analyses that are unique. So that can make us, in some cases, the only game in town, if you will, for certain data elements. Other times, the value we bring is bringing data from a lot of different sources together into one place. We might not be the only place you could find certain parcel data, but we may be the only place you can find one set for the whole region, like a one-stop shop.

Tim Fulton 06:16And I imagine a bit of like, here's census parcel data, but it's overlaid with air quality. I know you guys do some gathering of air quality data yourself.

Dave Dixon 06:26Yeah, we do. That's part of the environmental sustainability work that I mentioned earlier. We are both responsible for issuing air quality alerts based on official regulatory monitors, as well as we have a community air quality monitoring program, where we deploy sensors around Franklin County to different neighborhoods to monitor those. And so we'll have results coming out later this year, actually, reporting on what that looks like. So those are all examples of data that we either take in and transform in some way to add value, or we produce. And in terms of your question about publicly available, we've made it easier than ever for folks to access all this information at our website, which is morpc.org/data. So if you're a data person out there and you want to know what do they have, if you go to /data, that is where you will find our population resource hub, which has a lot of population demographic information, whether that's current estimates or future forecasts. You'll find our Leaders Listen survey series reports. So we've done surveys on transportation, housing, environmental sustainability, economic development, and you can find all that content there, as well as our MOOD site, which stands for Mid-Ohio Open Data. That's where a lot of that geospatial planning data can be found. So if you're looking at everything from traffic circles to green infrastructure to future land use, if you're looking for that geospatial data, that's hosted there online. And lastly, I want to plug the newest thing we have going, which is our MORPC Insights platform. That's an attempt to move from sharing data, which is great, to sharing insights. So on that platform, what folks will find is frequently asked metrics, easily categorized by region, county, community. There are big tabs at the top. It's designed for anyone to use. You don't have to be a data scientist to use this. You can click on it and click Delaware County, and it will then show the metrics that we track on a regular basis for Delaware County, organized in little tiles with like news headlines. What's the growth trend? What are the housing prices doing? Kind of those quick takeaways. So that's something we're really excited about, to get that information and those insights at more folks' fingertips. And we look to continue expanding that with phase two of that project this year.

Tim Fulton 09:00And are you doing much in terms of sort of translating, here's what this data says? And by that I mean, are you doing like an overlay and a regression analysis of like, air quality is this and the income is this, or air quality is this and the health outcomes are this, and looking for where there may be causal relationships?

Dave Dixon 09:29I would say that for the most part, no. We don't have a lot of novel social science research-related projects. But what we are attempting to do is make sure that we concisely provide an evaluative type of statement for the data that we do have, so basically describing trends. In the past, folks may have had to email us to request a CSV file that has a bunch of data. And that creates a barrier to, what does this mean? I just see this table of all these numbers. So what we have done in terms of sharing what does this mean is that trend analysis for the different individual metrics. There are some where we've done maybe a little bit of that. You'll see in there we have a tile where we look at the relationship between the population increase, development of household units, and the price increases that we're seeing, because there's a relationship there. So there's some of that, but this first step primarily was to move from provision of just raw data to make it in a more accessible format with some insights about what those trends are doing. Now, MORPC works with a lot of data, so one thing I have to make sure I share with everyone is that we have so many smart people collecting and analyzing data and writing reports around this organization. It doesn't all come from the data team. So for example, there will be insights in that air quality monitoring report that I shared with you. And absolutely, the placement — the steering committee that helped determine where those would be placed was looking at different neighborhoods and looking at potential inequalities, to make sure that we sited sensors in a representative sample to see what's going on. And so those results will be available in that report. So we'll be working closely with J.R. on that. He's our air quality specialist. And tons of examples like that. Same thing is true for transportation and economic development and all these programs. We have great partners doing their own work, and you can find most of that on our website as well. It may not be on that /data page I told you about, but we've got a big question mark, magnifying glass on the front page. Take a look. That's great stuff to search for.

Tim Fulton 11:59Yeah, right. Sometimes people can put forward like a big number, and you don't really know what it means. I'm curious how much you guys focus on, here's a big raw number, but here's that raw number in comparison to other numbers throughout the state. Like, how Franklin County or Delaware County, how their air quality compares to other counties in the region?

Dave Dixon 12:29So right now, a lot of that happens anecdotally or upon request. To the extent that you want to make those types of comparisons, we have a lot of users who flip back and forth between tables or between tiles on our Insights platform to do those comparisons themselves. So I can flip between Delaware County and Franklin County. One exciting thing that we're looking to do with phase two of the Insights platform, which development will start this March, is specifically to introduce comparisons. And those comparisons will be at all levels. So one thing is, like you mentioned, big numbers. We have a lot of big numbers for Central Ohio, but this will allow us to have comparisons to other major metros around the country. And so you won't be taking those in isolation. Someone may say that's big, or maybe that's fast, but how big is it or how fast is it? So it'll give you some point of comparison there. Similarly, it'll allow users to select multiple counties to do comparisons between the 15 counties in our Central Ohio region, and at the community level as well. So if I'm a stakeholder in, say, Newark, and I want to say, okay, well, how does this compare to the city of Delaware, we're looking to make that easier. As I said, it is possible now, but it's not right there at users' fingertips to say, give me, generate this comparison for me, or present this data together so that I can view these trends and see how they compare.

Tim Fulton 14:01And I'm curious if you have any data on what people are interested in looking at. So this is a shameless plug. I built a website, ColumbusDistricts.com, and Columbus Districts takes the city council districts of Columbus and says, what's the average income, what is the racial makeup? I was actually able to access some crime data for like, which district has more crime. And what's been super interesting to me is seeing certainly contentious city council elections will spur more traffic to individual pages, but seeing which pages, when there's not a contentious election, what pages are getting traffic and more traffic than others. And is that a result of an engaged population there, or is it something else? So my original question: are people looking at air quality data more than transportation data or housing data? Do you have those insights?

Dave Dixon 15:12Yeah, so I'll start by saying this at the highest level. The interest for all comers here to MORPC — I mentioned our multiple stakeholders. We have our other departments we're supporting, we have our members, we have other agencies and nonprofit partners that we work with. A lot of the volume ebbs and flows with what people are working on. So a lot of the activity is less about kind of general curiosity than a work need being met. Like, I need this data because we're updating this plan, or I heard you guys have a new forecast out, can I get those because we're working on X? As a class of items, in terms of combining volume and level of interest in terms of excitement, or how much oxygen it takes up, folks are very interested in the future. They would love to have a crystal ball, and they would love for any type of forecasting work to be updated with some hyper-frequency. So we're known for our population forecasts here at MORPC, and we also go lower than the county level, which is the type of information you can get from the state, into the local level. So for planning, all sorts of plans, we have that future population, household, and jobs forecast in five-year increments through 2050 for small areas. And so that is something that folks come back for time and time again. It's one of those areas I mentioned before where there's nowhere else that you can get that, which makes it valuable. Also valuable, but there's also a lot of rigor we put behind that to be able to produce something like that for folks. We are able, on our website and also on the Insights platform, to track clicks, to see what's getting the most traffic. What I have seen looking at that is that it mostly relates to releases of new data, or releases of other information where folks are pointing to it. I don't think we have huge swells in organic visits from the public about something they know MORPC has one tile for the region, or one report that has that. It ties a lot back to our communications and engagement teamwork, putting things out. Or if we have a big meeting or event where something's discussed and we plug it with the QR code, that's where we see those spikes. So it seems to be more of us, either major projects folks need the data so they come looking for it, or we're kind of driving traffic to specific things as we move through the calendar year.

Tim Fulton 17:53Talk about how you've seen members utilize the data that you're putting out there. Maybe just an example, like a use case for it?

Dave Dixon 18:01Yeah, absolutely. Some of it, I'm happy to say, I believe is being used as evidence to help inform decision making at the local level. There are a lot of different opinions on what the best course of action is, but one way that we can help inform that is kind of being a trusted source of data for what is now. What data do we have on this now? And so that could be related to all sorts of aspects of planning. We field many requests where folks have a council meeting coming up, or a trustee meeting coming up, or there's going to be a public forum on something. So that's where we get a lot of ad hoc requests.

Tim Fulton 18:54Where somebody wants a data point that they can use to either support an argument or inform a direction that they want to go.

Dave Dixon 19:01They'll email us and say, hey, we're looking for this number. So that's one way that it gets used. The other types of ad hoc "what do you have on this" requests we get are often tied to grant applications, where folks are looking for some baseline data about a population. So they say, we looked at the data you have, that's great, but we really want to know about this group in this area over this time. What can you get to us? Because that would really help us with our application, because that's who we're looking to serve with service X. So informing and helping folks have the data they need to make the case for funding is another way that the data is used. And then, of course, planning. That's kind of one of the main features of convening 90 local governments together, whether we're looking in our closer area for our MPO metropolitan transportation plan, or more rural counties for the central rural transportation planning. You have to rally around some common baselines and some projections for the future. So folks have heard that Central Ohio may become a region of 3.15 million people by 2050. That's our number. And then each county has county control totals. So what are we planning for? Whether it's roads or power or water or housing or education, you have to have some level of agreement on what's coming down the pike. And so that is core to what we do. If you go and you explore online to see what data is there supporting that, we've got that population demographics information I talked about already with the population, households, and jobs. We also do a ton of work to collect local comp plans and zoning information and model out land use into the future, which is huge. It's an endeavor that we undertake every four years when we update our long-range plans. But that is critical for so many reasons, some of which we can predict in advance, like transportation plans. We know we will be doing some of them. The data is just there when folks need it. So when they decide it's time to update their comp plan, they can go and see what we had on file, maybe in a neighboring jurisdiction they're doing a thoroughfare plan and they need data outside of what they have. So they'll come to us for that type of information as well.

Tim Fulton 21:35Are there data or insights that you have been surprised by, or that you think Columbusites would be surprised by?

Dave Dixon 21:45Yeah, I think certainly the growth, right?

Tim Fulton 21:49That's what we all talk about, and I don't know if that's waning now that some development plans right outside the city have sort of slowed down. Or, you know, is our air good? What are the insights that you think would surprise people?

Dave Dixon 22:06Yeah, I love this question, and I think there are a number of things that would surprise people. One is that sometimes two things can be true, and they're not mutually exclusive, even though they're sometimes presented that way in the media. So here's what I mean. There's always room to improve on air quality, and occasionally we do have air quality alerts here in Central Ohio, but overall our air quality is very good. And so counter to reports that got picked up in national media and local media from private consulting firms making claims of Columbus having poor air quality, or even the worst air quality in the nation, which we know is not true — it might surprise folks, not only is it not true that we have the worst air quality in the nation, it's not even close to being true. That's kind of wildly off. So again, two things are true. We can always do more to improve our air quality. We need to pay attention to those alerts. But we can also recognize that we're doing a good job here in Central Ohio at maintaining good air quality. You mentioned growth. Similarly, two things can be true at the same time. Are we one of the fastest growing regions in the Midwest? Yes, we are. Are we seeing major developments, more developments with billions and hundreds of millions of dollars cited than we have in the past? Yes, we are. But we're also seeing very steady growth over time. If you hear someone say it's exponential growth, unprecedented growth, these types of things, the data actually doesn't back that up. We're seeing very steady growth continually for decades, and our projections to get us to that 3.15 million by 2050 are actually more or less a continuation of that steady growth, looking at about 1% year-on-year growth. You mentioned Intel. It might surprise folks to know that based on our most recent population estimates, we're more or less on track, despite what you see in the news with Intel. There are a lot of other developments happening, as big as Intel was, and especially as impactful as it is nearby the site, right within, say, a 40-minute drive time — that's about how far most people are willing to drive for work in our region. There's a lot of other developments on the map. You can go on to that open data side, I mentioned MOOD, and you can look at the major economic development maps. And I think folks may be surprised by that. Sometimes the biggest story takes up a lot of attention, but there are a lot of big stories, and you may not have heard of all of them. So you can go and see what the developments are, where they are, what's nearby. So I see that as a good sign. We had better than national average job growth last year. And the Blue Chip economic forecast presented last week from Regionomics — yes, they will have slightly better than the national average again this year. So it's a big, diverse region. There's a lot going on.

Tim Fulton 25:20Yeah. And you guys do surveys on what people care about. I'm wondering if you do much tracking on sentiment, right? 73% of people care about housing. Do they feel good about it?

Dave Dixon 25:36Yeah, we do. We do a lot of tracking.

Tim Fulton 25:40The survey series. How is our mood? I guess this is what I'm getting at.

Dave Dixon 25:43The survey series I mentioned, it's called Leaders Listen. We do one survey each year on different topics, and we do ask folks questions that really get to the heart of the matter, including, how are we doing as planners and decision makers on different areas? What I will say is that, going through different policy areas, the sentiment on housing is down. And I think that people are reacting to something real. I made a note for myself here that housing home sale prices in the last five years have increased more than 60%. And so if you're in the market for a home, you're feeling that. Or if you've recently bought a home and you're paying that higher mortgage with the higher interest rate on top of that. And renters aren't immune. So if you're holding off on buying, we had the seventh fastest increase in rent last year of the largest 140 housing markets in the country. We're seventh. That's a list you don't want to be at the top of. And so there's a lot of work that needs to be done on that front. Again, the job creation is strong, so are wage increases. Wages have been up. They just haven't been up as fast as other costs are rising.

Tim Fulton 27:10Do you think, to an extent, that sometimes there are areas where sentiment may be driven not necessarily by facts and may be driven by things like the air quality? Like a private organization comes in for whatever reason and lists the worst 10 municipal areas for air quality, and then people think our air quality is not good. I used to joke, you can make data say whatever you want it to say. Are there truths that you're interested in people hearing, like the air quality thing that you brought up earlier?

Dave Dixon 27:56Yeah, there are some areas like that, and specifically with regard to perceptions around air quality and also water quality, drinking water quality. So what I can say with confidence is there are many residents who are concerned that they may have poor drinking water quality, where testing and data that we have from providers and EPA and others does not back that up. Part of that can be a definitional problem. What do you mean by poor quality? So sometimes survey respondents will cite an odor, or an appearance of chalkiness or something, that doesn't result in being unhealthy. So I do think there's an opportunity. We have very good drinking water for the most part in Central Ohio, and we have a large number of residents who I'm worried are worried, is that safe? And we know that there are decisions to do things like spend a lot of money on bottled water and things like that every week at the grocery store. So they may be doing some things like that that they don't need to. So I would encourage folks, if they are worried about their water quality, there are resources out there, there's data out there, there are people who can help in public health and other organizations. But it might not be true. So that's one area. We talked about air quality, and that's another area where I can reiterate that not everything you see or smell in the air is necessarily harmful to your health. We look at ozone and what's called PM2.5, or particulate matter, here. And those are the things that can generate those air quality alerts. A lot of that can be externally driven. In terms of the air quality alerts, folks are familiar with the wildfires that have happened and smoke that's drifted into the area. With the ozone, it can be a lot about higher temperatures and things like that. But for the most part, keep an eye on that. It is helpful to stay indoors if you're part of a vulnerable group, when advised to do so, if you can. But otherwise, the folks in Central Ohio are doing a good job at maintaining that.

Tim Fulton 30:18Okay, back to Data Day. Who should attend?

Dave Dixon 30:24So if you are a data professional, this is absolutely, I would say, in Central Ohio, a must-attend event, for learning and for networking. There are sessions here which get into the weeds. I mentioned earlier that we have 16 breakout sessions, and the way we handle that is we try to have something at each part of the day for everyone. So each wave of breakouts, there should be one where you can dive into the weeds with the data wonks and talk about methods and all that kind of thing. But we also have sessions that are focused on results, to be better informed. So folks have done some research, they've done some analysis. What did they find? How can you use that as a decision maker? So if you're in this civic space and you're a program manager or even an elected official — we have some coming out, which I really appreciate, them digging in and rolling up their sleeves and getting into it. When we say it's for everyone, we really do mean it, but it's definitely a data-driven event. So if data is not your thing, I'll buy you coffee someday and try to change your mind that it should be. But if it's not your thing, maybe not your target event. But for most people, I think the value of data and the learnings from all the research and everything that's happening is kind of must-know.

Tim Fulton 31:49But even a curious person will find programming to expand their mind.

Dave Dixon 31:55Yeah. Right now, on our website, we have the full agenda listed out with pretty descriptive session headings, so you can go through and see what folks are going to be talking about. So again, if you're wondering where corporate America is going with data and IT, if you're wondering what's going to happen with transit, if you're wondering what's going on with housing and cost of living in the region, if you're interested in learning more about air quality — you've asked several questions, there's a session on that, and many more wonderful sessions as well. And these are folks who, for the most part, are living and working here locally. They're your neighbors, your colleagues. And so Data Day isn't the end, but connect with them and we can collaborate and do good things in 2026.

Tim Fulton 32:40Got it. I end every interview with the same two questions. What do you think Central Ohio is doing well, and what do you think it's not doing so well?

Dave Dixon 32:51All right. Well, I think I've seen some answers to this question previously, so maybe I can provide something a little novel on the "what we're doing well." Because we do convene and collaborate and follow the Columbus Way, and we have to never take that for granted, because we talk to our peers in other regions and we know that's not something you can take for granted. And it's exactly the type of working together that we need to take on big problems. But I think in terms of the development that's happening, both public and private sector, we are overperforming. You asked about how we compare to other places. Whether we look at big moves like the new John Glenn terminal and the LinkUS initiative passing and the Zone In initiative here in Columbus, and so many of our other communities updating their comprehensive plans and zoning — I see those as very positive things that are happening on the public side, to have the plans and the infrastructure ready to try to improve things and not just kind of let growth happen to us. So I think we've taken that step from kind of, we're growing, what do we do about it, to taking those actions, which is great, and I think will help set us up for success. And then on the private side, as we mentioned, the overperforming on job attraction and retention in the region and all those big deals. That is a good problem to have, you could say, when you're considering the alternative of a decline. It's much better to think, how can we best take advantage of all these opportunities with companies moving here and expanding their operations here and bringing those jobs, than being faced with the other issue. In terms of what we're not doing well, I'd like to see even more speed on the housing side of things. So I cited some metrics there, and the reason for that is housing is a current challenge for folks who live here now. So our neighbors, our family members, our colleagues. And a lot of folks are really cost-burdened. So they may be renting, wanting to buy that first home, but can't quite afford it yet. They may be paying more than 30%, or significantly more than 30%, of their income on their rent or mortgage every month, just struggling to make ends meet. So that's a major issue for people who are here now, and it also is a workforce and economic development issue, because when we look at attracting and continuing what we're doing well, which I mentioned, we need to maintain that cost of living, that relative affordability advantage compared to other regions. And so that's something that we've had kind of in our back pocket for a long time. And some of those trends, especially with housing, for many people that's the biggest cost that they have, these steep increases. I think that it needs to be addressed. We hear a lot about that, so I just advocate that folks get involved. If you're getting involved in your community, if you happen to be one of our partners out there, we can all be asking, what more can we do? How can we make sure we get ahead of this before it becomes a problem? And MORPC is here to help with that.

Tim Fulton 36:17Great. Thank you so much for your time.

Dave Dixon 36:17You're very welcome. Thank you.

Tim Fulton 36:17Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theConfluenceCast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite data scientist. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theConfluenceCast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.