Hey everyone! 

Now that it's been another week, I've begun my main project; updating a property ownership database. There are over 2000 rows to be updated, with more that will be added as we expand the survey scope of where Chinatown community members live. I've been coming into the Toronto City archives, working between my laptop and the City of Toronto's tax assessment roll data on another computer. The archives' data is stored on a genuinely ancient system with terrible UI. Entries are added manually to the archives, and coupling this with Chinese names that don't lend super well to romanisation, there is a lot of data to clean! 

Where I was originally intimidated by the amount of data I'll need to sift through I've worked into a rhythm and am already halfway through! I aim to get the rest of it done this week and begin analysing the data more thoroughly.

I've found it important to remember what this data will be used for; community members regularly ask for requests about property ownership in the area, and it'll help the land trust understand what kind of housing is in the area and what should could be prioritised for future acquisitions. Every now and then (and to be honest, surprisingly often, showing how much the neighbourhood is changing) I end up flagging a new owner or a mailing address that seems familiar and it gives me a little dopamine rush to get me going. Who needs caffeine? (still me, they don't allow food or drink in the archives themselves)

Chinatown remains an incredible community to be embedded within and I'm excited to see where the next 4 weeks take me, though it makes me sad to know that I'm already almost halfway there!