How I Keep Tabs On What’s Going on In My City

Take an interest:

National and international news flood our feeds but local events are what impact us the most and our neighborhoods and towns are where we have the most influence. Learning as much as we can about where we live can help us get a better picture of what’s going on in our area, help is to be more prepared, and provide avenues for making positive impacts.

Pulse Point

Pulse Point is a free app that shows you a 24h snapshot of fire and emergency calls in your area. Using Pulse Point you can start to get a picture of when things happen, and you’ll start to associate the larger emergency responses with importance. For example, it’s common to see an ambulance and fire truck respond to a call, but if you see 4 ambulances it might be worth checking out.

Broadcastify

You may be able to find a live fees of your local Fire, EMS, and Police scanner traffic. For $5 a month you can go back and listen to months worths of calls. Police scanner apps are great if you’ve ever seen a large police presence in your area and want to find out what’s going on.

Flight Radar 24

If you’re often seeing aircraft overhead, Flight Radar 24 can help you identify police, commercial, and media helicopters. I check this often if I hear a low flying plane or circling helicopter.

Instagram and NextDoor

Use social media apps to follow your neighborhood, police department, fire department, city administration and officials. You’ll learn about all types of stuff going on in real time.

Your City’s Website

If your city is like mine, you’ll find that the website has everything from building codes to zoning maps and everything in between. community events, road closures, planned construction and local issues will all be a point of focus. Many cities also maintain event calendars. It’s worth doing a monthly or quarterly survey to see what events, protests, fairs, and projects are planned in your area.

Taking Notes

I highly recommend using a file system on your phone and a high quality app like Obsidian to make notes and keep track of what you learn.