Civic Return
A county-level map showing how much open-access public land each Kentucky resident has — in square feet, from federal data.
About This Project
Civic Return measures accessible green space per resident across all Kentucky counties. Search for a county and the tool returns a square footage figure based on parks, forests, wildlife areas, and recreation grounds that are open to the public. The goal: make land equity visible without burying it in a report.
It's built for residents, journalists, and local planners who want a fast, honest look at how public land is distributed — and where the gaps are.
Why I Built This
Public green space is unevenly distributed, and that disparity is rarely visible at the county level. I built Civic Return to surface it using authoritative federal sources — not estimates or approximations. The data is there; it just needed a usable front end.
How It Was Built
Built with vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The map renders county boundaries and shades them by green space per capita. A county search pulls the figure directly from the dataset and displays it alongside a statewide comparison.
All data is processed client-side. No backend, no login, no tracking.
Data sources: USGS Protected Areas Database (PAD-US 4.1), U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (2018–2022), U.S. Census Bureau county boundary data (2022).
FAQ
Q: What counts as green space?
A: Open-access public land only — parks, forests,
wildlife areas, and recreation grounds. Private land, golf courses,
and restricted areas are excluded.
Q: Where does the data come from?
A: The USGS Protected Areas Database (PAD-US 4.1)
for land parcels, and the U.S. Census Bureau for population
estimates and county boundaries.
Q: Does this store anything?
A: No. Everything runs in the browser. Nothing is
saved or sent.