UScityURL is a complete and manually verified dataset containing information on whether a municipality has an official website and, if so, what its web address is, of all 19,518 municipalities in the United States. A municipality is defined as a legally bounded entity with a local government, which is equivalent to an incorporated place in the US Census. Each entry of municipal web address was manually validated by two researchers who have expertise in urban and regional studies.
Using Google Custom Search API with this dataset allows researchers to systematically search self-defined keywords on municipal websites. The returned search results pinpoint where a certain topic is being discussed and can be used for further text-based analysis. Please run how_to_use_tutorial.ipynb to see detailed instructions and an example.
Please report issues if you find a website address is wrong or out of date.
This work is under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Anyone is allowed to adapt, modify, and distribute this work with proper citation.
Cai, Meng, Huang, Huiqing, & Decaminada, Travis (2023). Local data at a national scale: Introducing a dataset of official municipal websites in the United States for text-based analytics. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 50(7), 1988–1993. https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083231190961