Barking & Dagenham LBC’s Borough Data Explorer is helping the council visualise the health, wellbeing and happiness of residents on a street-by-street, house-by-house basis, says Chris Naylor

At the end of the 19th century, Charles Booth’s inquiry into Life and Labour in London produced descriptive maps of poverty across the capital. This early example of social cartography, which mapped the streets of London by levels of poverty, later influenced policy decisions on old age pensions and free school meals. Booth’s work in East London to create these maps was intended to use data and insight to make London, in the modern parlance, a fairer and more inclusive place.