UA, Tuscaloosa File Joint Patent For Blight-Detecting Technology

TUSCALOOSA, AL — The city of Tuscaloosa on Wednesday announced a collaboration with the University of Alabama to create a system capable of pinpointing blighted areas in a community, with the goal of helping prevent issues before they become worse.

The inventors of the new technology are Erik Johnson, assistant professor of economics in the UA Culverhouse College of Business, and Brendan Moore, executive director of urban development for the city of Tuscaloosa. The new technology also comes as the city is working to address blight in places such as University Manor, with the City Council still in talks to buy about a dozen blighted properties. Other problem areas persist, as well, with city leaders underscoring the need to more effectively identify blight in the community.

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“This system helps to prevent neighborhood decline in an affordable way using a unique method to collect and analyze data on blighted properties,” Johnson said. “The ability of the model to determine exactly what part of the property is driving the blight score can help inform property owners and lead to low-cost interventions.”

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In a press release, the city said Johnson developed the artificial intelligence that powers the blight analysis using data and images of past blighted properties and code violations to train the computer model.

The technology reportedly uses images of property captured by cameras mounted on city vehicles, particularly garbage collection trucks, which then feed into a computer model trained to spot blighted properties and nuisances. The model also provides an assessment and information on potential remedies.

UA and the city recently applied for a patent on the technology after successfully training the machine learning model. The pilot phase of the project continues, with further testing and improvements to the technology to ensure it can effectively expand.

“The more data deep-learning models are given to analyze, the more effective they become," Johnson said. "The city has been great about putting together data from across departments to inform the model."

The city also claims the patent-pending technology will reduce personnel time devoted to inspection, limit potentially harmful interaction on properties and uniformly expand detection to all parts of the city.

The city says it frequently receives calls about overgrown grass, abandoned vehicles, litter, illegal parking, and appliances or furniture left outside, with the new technology providing the ability to analyze images of properties and highlight issues using a scoring system.

Moore then said by placing the cameras on municipal garbage trucks, an entire city can be scanned each week, automating the initial inspections performed now by city staff. He then said this contactless method can minimize potential confrontations between residents and city employees.

“Efforts to address blight are not new or distinct to Tuscaloosa,” Moore said. “But it is a constant problem that is difficult to appropriately staff and address. This technology allows us to create early, equitable interventions that can enhance communities, prevent neighborhood decline, and connect underserved populations to social services to generate long-lasting change.”

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