Michael Sinanian

Quick Snapshot

Role: Data visualization researcher
Team: Graduate information visualization team project
Customers: City leaders, planners, and residents assessing blight-reduction initiatives

Interactive dashboard tracking Detroit demolitions alongside crime metrics. — The interactive dashboard blended demolition spend, vacancy density, and crime metrics for neighborhood-level comparison.

Mandate / Opportunity / Problem Scope

Detroit invested hundreds of millions of dollars to demolish vacant structures, hoping it would curb crime. We built an interactive dashboard so stakeholders could explore whether demolitions actually correlated with reductions in violent and property crime.

Heat map of Detroit showing demolitions and crime density. — Layered heat maps exposed pockets where heavy demolition coincided with persistent violent crime.

Bar chart comparing Detroit crime categories over time. — Category breakouts helped the city weigh how property and violent crimes responded differently to demolition efforts.

What I Led / Delivered / Highlights

Acquired Detroit’s open crime dataset (2009–present) and cleaned it via Python scripts for analysis.
Visualized patterns in Tableau, layering demolition activity over crime density maps, category trends, and neighborhood comparisons.
Authored narrative insights about vacancy rates, health risks, and the financial burden of ongoing demolition programs.

Impact / Lasting Value / Takeaway

The project revealed that while property crime dipped in high-demolition neighborhoods, violent crime held steady or increased, calling into question the efficacy of demolition-only strategies and giving community advocates data to pursue alternative investments.

Crime & Demolitions in Detroit

Quick Snapshot

Mandate / Opportunity / Problem Scope

What I Led / Delivered / Highlights

Impact / Lasting Value / Takeaway