Welcome to the Neighborhood

Last season there was a TV show in the US called the District. One of the devices on it was a map of the District of Columbia that could have different types of crimes scenes overlayed onto it. This concept might turn a profit if it was incorporated into something like Mapquest and offered as part of a premium service by either auto clubs or real estate agencies (although some agencies might not want this information known).

By law, real estate agencies have to tell the buyer about any defects in the houses they're trying to sell (at least in the US). A recent murder in the house wouldn't be considered a defect though, nor would the fact that last year someone had broken into a house three different times (both of these are real examples of houses in my neighborhood where the rest of the houses led a more banal existence). The users of this new service, whether it was paid for by individuals or by companies who wanted to offer it as part of their relocation service, could simply type in an address and see a mapquest-type display of their prospective neighborhood with crime scenes overlaying it. The crimes could be filtered by type to see if they were minor or major drawbacks, or by date range to see if the crime rate was going up or down.