Open Data Buffalo
Open Data Buffalo is Buffalo, New York’s open data program run by the city. It shares city data in a central online portal in computer-friendly formats and makes them freely available to everyone in the public domain.
The goal is to be transparent, spark new ideas, and make city operations more efficient and accountable.
A brief history:
- In 2013, IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge advised Buffalo to improve data sharing and governance.
- About three years later, Buffalo joined What Works Cities to expand how it uses data.
- With support from What Works Cities, Buffalo worked with The Sunlight Foundation to create an Open Data Policy, using public input gathered with the Madison tool from OpenGov Foundation.
- In September 2017, Buffalo chose Socrata to run its open data platform.
- The Open Data Buffalo portal launched on February 22, 2018, alongside Mayor Byron W. Brown’s Civic Innovation Challenge powered by AT&T to encourage people to use city data to solve local problems.
As of October 2019, the data catalog was connected with the New York State portal and included over 654 datasets and 222 geospatial assets, plus more than 60 City publications.
The portal includes a wide range of city data and maps to help residents, businesses, and researchers.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 17:01 (CET).