While attending the recent SPARKt conference I had the pleasure of listening to Adrian Holovaty, the founder of EveryBlock.com explain his unique service. If you haven’t heard of it, I suggest you head over their right away and sign up. It’s amazing.

What is EveryBlock?

EveryBlock.com is an amazing service.

EveryBlock.com is a service that goes out onto the web and looks for information about your block and the surrounding area?up to four blocks around your block. It looks for lots of stuff:

• Homes for sale
• Closings
• Crimes
• Pictures people are taking in the area
• News
• Building permits
• Liquor license applications
• Reviews of local businesses
• Street closures
• Restaurant inspections (do you really want to know?)
• Lost and Found
• And more…

I get a daily email from EveryBlock.com telling me all the comings and goings in my neighborhood.

Now, given the city we live in…what is most amazing about this is that Adrian was able to get this data out of the notoriously tight-lipped City of Chicago. The city didn’t want to give up the crime data, but Adrian persisted and got it for all of us. The problem is that it’s delayed by over a week and is often very, very vague. They have an online petition for you to sign asking the city to give more details on the crimes so we know what is really going on. Please sign it!

It’s a great service and I highly recommend it…except for the restaurant inspections. Those just make me sad.