Skip to main content
Glama
zencity-product

city-data-mcp

Official

city-data-mcp

An MCP server that gives Claude deep access to US public data — demographics, economics, crime, employment, weather, housing, transit, schools, budgets, and more across 30+ cities. Built for government intelligence workflows.

What it does

22 tools that let Claude query, compare, and synthesize real public data from 15+ federal and city-level sources:

Core Data Tools

Tool

Source

What it does

query_city_data

Socrata

Crime & 311 service requests (5 cities)

list_available_data

All

Discover available cities, datasets, and coverage

query_demographics

US Census ACS

Population, income, poverty, education, housing, commuting (30 cities)

compare_demographics

US Census ACS

Side-by-side comparison table for 2-6 cities

query_economics

FRED

Unemployment, housing index, personal income with trends (20 metros)

query_employment

BLS

Metro unemployment rate, employment, labor force (20 metros)

query_national_crime

FBI UCR

State-level crime stats with multi-year trends

query_weather

NWS

Current conditions and forecasts for any US city

query_air_quality

AirNow/EPA

Real-time air quality index (AQI) and pollutant levels

query_housing

HUD

Fair market rents, income limits, housing affordability

query_water

USGS

Water levels, streamflow, and conditions

query_representatives

Google Civic

Elected officials at all levels for any address

query_311_trends

Open311/SeeClickFix

Service request trends and patterns

query_transit

GTFS feeds

Public transit routes, performance, coverage

query_schools

Dept of Education

School district demographics, performance, funding

query_permits

City portals

Building permit activity and trends

query_budget

City portals

Municipal budget and expenditure data

query_traffic

City portals

Traffic safety and congestion data

Intelligence Tools

Tool

What it does

create_census_cohort

Find peer cities by demographic/economic similarity (fast, Census-only)

create_full_cohort

Rich peer cohort using demographics + economics + employment

create_city_briefing

Comprehensive city briefing pulling from all available data sources

map_issue_data

Map a community issue (e.g., "affordable housing") to relevant data across sources

track_city_changes

Track how a city's metrics have changed over time

Related MCP server: FRED

Quick start

Claude Desktop (local, stdio)

  1. Clone and build:

git clone https://github.com/zencity-product/city-data-mcp.git
cd city-data-mcp
npm install && npm run build
  1. Get free API keys:

  2. Add to Claude Desktop config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "city-data-mcp": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/city-data-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "CENSUS_API_KEY": "your-census-key",
        "FRED_API_KEY": "your-fred-key"
      }
    }
  }
}
  1. Restart Claude Desktop.

Remote (HTTP mode)

Run as an HTTP server for remote access:

PORT=3000 CENSUS_API_KEY=xxx FRED_API_KEY=xxx node dist/index.js --http

MCP endpoint: http://localhost:3000/mcp Health check: http://localhost:3000/health

REST API

When running in HTTP mode, a REST API is also available at /api/ for non-MCP consumers (dashboards, scripts, other apps):

GET /api/cities              → all supported cities
GET /api/census/:city        → demographics
GET /api/economics/:city     → FRED economic indicators
GET /api/employment/:city    → BLS employment data
GET /api/crime/:city         → FBI crime stats
GET /api/weather/:city       → NWS weather
GET /api/air-quality/:city   → EPA air quality
GET /api/housing/:city       → HUD housing data
GET /api/water/:city         → USGS water conditions
GET /api/representatives/:city → elected officials
GET /api/311/:city           → service request trends
GET /api/transit/:city       → public transit
GET /api/schools/:city       → school district data
GET /api/permits/:city       → building permits
GET /api/budget/:city        → municipal budget
GET /api/traffic/:city       → traffic safety
GET /api/briefing/:city      → comprehensive city briefing
GET /api/changes/:city       → metrics change tracking

Example prompts

  • "Create a full briefing on Denver"

  • "Compare demographics for Denver, Austin, and Portland"

  • "What are the economic indicators for Seattle?"

  • "Find cities similar to Boston based on housing costs"

  • "Who are the elected representatives for 123 Main St, Chicago?"

  • "What's the air quality like in Los Angeles right now?"

  • "Show me school district data for Houston"

  • "Map the issue of 'affordable housing crisis' to data for San Francisco"

  • "Track how Phoenix has changed over the last 5 years"

  • "What's the transit coverage like in Portland?"

  • "Show me building permit trends in Austin"

Data sources

Source

Coverage

Freshness

Auth

US Census ACS

30 cities (demographics)

Annual (5-year estimates)

Free key

FRED

20 metros (economic indicators)

Monthly to annual

Free key

BLS

20 metros (employment)

Monthly

Optional key

FBI UCR

All states (crime stats)

Annual (1-2yr lag)

Reuses Census key

NWS

All US locations (weather)

Real-time

None

AirNow/EPA

All US locations (air quality)

Real-time

None

HUD

All US areas (housing)

Annual

None

USGS

All US monitoring stations (water)

Real-time

None

Google Civic

All US addresses (representatives)

Live

None

Open311/SeeClickFix

Participating cities (311)

Near real-time

None

Socrata

5 cities (crime, 311)

Near real-time

None

GTFS feeds

Major cities (transit)

Varies

None

City open data portals

Varies (permits, budgets, traffic)

Varies

None

Covered cities

Demographics (Census): NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Austin, Denver, Boston, Nashville, Portland, Baltimore, Atlanta, Miami, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Columbus, Indianapolis, Memphis, Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Raleigh

Economics (FRED) & Employment (BLS): NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, Phoenix, Denver, Boston, Austin, Dallas, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Miami, Portland, Detroit, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Nashville, Charlotte

Weather, Air Quality, Housing, Water, Representatives: All US locations (national APIs)

311, Transit, Schools, Permits, Budgets, Traffic: City-specific coverage (varies)

Architecture

src/
├── index.ts              # Server entry (stdio + HTTP + REST transports)
├── cities.ts             # City registry lookup
├── types.ts              # Type definitions
└── sources/
    ├── census.ts         # US Census ACS (demographics)
    ├── fred.ts           # FRED (economic indicators)
    ├── bls.ts            # BLS (employment)
    ├── fbi.ts            # FBI UCR (crime statistics)
    ├── nws.ts            # National Weather Service
    ├── airnow.ts         # EPA AirNow (air quality)
    ├── hud.ts            # HUD (housing)
    ├── usgs.ts           # USGS (water)
    ├── civic.ts          # Google Civic (representatives)
    ├── socrata.ts        # Socrata (city-level crime, 311)
    ├── three11.ts        # Open311/SeeClickFix (service requests)
    ├── transit.ts        # GTFS (public transit)
    ├── schools.ts        # School district data
    ├── permits.ts        # Building permits
    ├── budget.ts         # Municipal budgets
    ├── traffic.ts        # Traffic safety & congestion
    ├── cohort.ts         # Census-based peer city cohort builder
    ├── full-cohort.ts    # Multi-source peer city cohort builder
    ├── briefing.ts       # Comprehensive city briefing generator
    ├── issue-mapper.ts   # Community issue → data mapper
    ├── change-tracker.ts # City metrics change tracking
    └── geo-resolver.ts   # Geographic coordinate resolution

International expansion

Research on extending to UK and Canada data sources is tracked separately. Key findings:

  • UK: 12/15 US categories have usable equivalents. Strongest: crime (data.police.uk), water (Environment Agency), demographics (ONS/Nomis).

  • Canada: StatCan WDS covers 6+ categories via one API. MSC GeoMet covers weather + air + water in one API.

License

MIT

F
license - not found
-
quality - not tested
D
maintenance

Maintenance

Maintainers
Response time
Release cycle
Releases (12mo)
Commit activity

Resources

Unclaimed servers have limited discoverability.

Looking for Admin?

If you are the server author, to access and configure the admin panel.

Latest Blog Posts

MCP directory API

We provide all the information about MCP servers via our MCP API.

curl -X GET 'https://glama.ai/api/mcp/v1/servers/zencity-product/gov-context-mcp'

If you have feedback or need assistance with the MCP directory API, please join our Discord server