The Neighborhood Development Observatory (NDO) was inaugurated in March of 2006 when it began to work together with the Master’s of Urban Economics of La Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (UTDT) in the creation of a survey capable of generating a great variety of indicators about the following aspects: housing configuration, occupation, health, education, income, consumption, diet, security, social characteristics, and living conditions. FPVS had not been using tools to measure the impact of its projects and it became necessary to include a source of complementary information that would facilitate the identification of the priorities of the residents in order to adjust the design of the projects to their needs and abilities, as well as to provide guarantees and knowledge about these populations to both the private and public sector.

This project could be considered as a precursor for this field of study. In general, we used to measure the infrastructure deficit and poverty based on the number of homes. This method of quantifying, although it reveals objective data, does not indicate the territorial impact or the positive or negative influence (externalities) of whether or not a neighbor has proper infrastructure.

· Construction of the program:

The program developed in three principal steps:

The collection of facts about the socio-economic conditions of the families, of their homes, of the services available and local management. This step consisted of direct surveys to the residents and required a significant amount of time to be achieved. We worked with a multi-disciplined team composed of economists, an urban architect, sociologists, and a technician in GIS (Geographic Information Systems). Up to now, we have surveyed 800 families (out of the 8,000 in the zone) which are divided into four groups based on the gas and microcredits programs of the Foundation, using a control group and test group scheme, so that the survey emulates a natural experiment.
Processing and classifying the complementary facts of the survey: originating from secondary sources as national or sub-national statistics.
Interpretation, analysis, and transfer of facts: We recorded the results of the surveys in a database containing more than 350,000 facts that were analyzed over a long period. This database was normalized in order to be able to statistically analyze it using the program STATA.
· Alliance strategy

Local alliances: We trained a group of local surveyors (who were the promoters of the gas program and knew the residents). This generated confidence in the project and the ability to overcome the prejudices held by some reluctant neighbors who did not want to answer some of the questions they considered delicate or private.
Academic alliance: Alliance with the Master’s in Urban Economics of UTDT. This alliance is in charge of information analysis (together with members of FPVS) and later the diffusion of the collected information through various academic seminars conducted on such topics as the health impacts of FPVS programs.
Technical Alliances: The Foundation joined itself with Poliarquia, UTDT, and la Universidad de la Plata in order to create a team of professional surveyors and market studies specialists responsible for the execution of the survey and the training of the local surveyors
. · General objective of the project:

Our objective is to create an instrument capable of analyzing the informal economic processes in order to decrease investment risks of businesses and to facilitate the State in the application of direct subsidies. We also seek to monitor the impacts of the programs and to generate academic knowledge about the local fears and problems, allowing us to analyze the variations in the territory in a more detailed and efficient manner.

· Desired results: Carry out surveys of the 8,000 families in the zone in order to establish a database that will allow us to increase our knowledge and the information available about the involved neighborhoods.

· Next steps:

Carry out new surveys, expanding them to a greater number of families in the zone.
Update the database about the families and the neighborhood.
Generate more urban indicators.
Continue to track the worries and available resources of the residents in order to detect new opportunities for development programs.