LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) — Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan wants to bring order to the city’s patchwork of property records—and he’s turning to Bloomberg Philanthropies for help.

The city has secured a $50,000 planning grant as a finalist in the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge, with a chance to win $1 million and build a single, unified system housing data on every home, lot, and building in Detroit—roughly 400,000 in total. The goal: centralize everything from tax status and permits to utility usage and blight violations, according to The Detroit News.

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“What we’ve done a good job of is getting a lot more data into the databases,” Duggan said. “Now the next step is to have all the databases be in one place for each house.”

Right now, Detroit’s property records are scattered across multiple systems. Even basic tasks—like verifying homeownership or checking whether taxes are paid—can require jumping between multiple systems. Duggan said the proposed platform would streamline everything for both residents and city staff, updating automatically when departments enter new information.

“People have gotten used to checking two databases every time they do something,” Duggan said. “This is gonna make their lives more efficient.” Duggan added that no new hires are expected, since existing staff already maintain the data.

The idea stems in part from Detroit’s battle with the U.S. Census Bureau. Duggan’s administration had to pull from scattered records to prove renovated homes were occupied, prompting the bureau to update its national policy. That experience, he said, made the city realize how powerful an integrated system could be.

“What if instead of chasing down all these different databases, all of the information for each house would be in one location?” Duggan said. 

The prototype will be tested this summer as part of Bloomberg’s global competition. Twenty-five cities will be chosen in early 2026 to receive $1 million and support to fully implement their proposals.

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The city has already taken steps toward the system’s development, including contracting vehicles equipped with cameras to photograph every street and capture aerial imagery. Duggan said the tool would eventually be open to the public—with privacy safeguards—and could take up to two years to fully build if the city wins the final grant.