New York City’s Capital Planning Explorer was built by the Department of City Planning (DCP) as a public-facing resource for understanding where public investment is planned and how projects relate to neighborhood needs. The idea grew from DCP’s Capital Planning Division, created in 2014, and its aim to give planners maps, data and analysis tools for coordinating investment across agencies. 2
The Explorer brought together information published by city agencies in a shared mapping and data interface. Its capital-project views let users explore planned and ongoing projects by location and agency, while other sections covered public facilities and program sites, and new housing development. The project was intended as a starting point for planning and coordination—not as a project-management system or a tool for quantitative analysis. Its own guidance cautioned that mapped data could be incomplete or inaccurate, and that planned projects might not proceed. 214
DCP’s Capital Planning team built and maintained the Explorer in-house, drawing on data from other city agencies; spatial data included contributions from agencies such as the Department of Design and Construction, Department of Transportation and Department of Parks and Recreation. 2 The site described itself as a beta product and invited feedback. 1
As of the site’s December 2025 update, the Explorer was no longer being updated for its capital-project, facilities and housing datasets, and DCP said it planned to decommission the data explorer. It directed users to a new Capital Projects Portal for current capital-project information and to NYC Open Data or DCP’s website for recent facilities and housing data. 3