Sustainable Seattle’s 2006 Street Level Surveys went through nine neighborhoods with cameras and notepads, essentially, to find the positive and negative aspects of each place. They marked them all down, from safe crosswalks to potholes to graffiti, and then they made some sort of complicated graphing decisions and sent some of their findings to the city. (They did it in 2005, too.)

The reports all say things like:

“For example, most of the asset or opportunity incidents were found in the Business category with 74 incidents collected local, non-franchise business which both have unique character and reflect the community. The second most collected category were Building conditions with 41 incidents collected. The buildings had good architectural detail, were in good condition and served as landmarks in the community. Community members also discovered that the sidewalks in the neighborhood provided good and safe walking spaces.”

They’ve just finished the last of the 2007 surveys–down to six neighborhoods this year–and the findings are all available, minus the pie chart of what was reported to the city.