Revitalizing a down-at-the-heel neighborhood is one of the big challenges of urban planning. First there's the problem of selecting the right project in the right area, finding the dollars to fund it, and seeing it through to completion. Then there's the challenge of measuring success.

Placer.ai has examined three projects in three separate cities that adopted different strategies to achieve their goals and used data to evaluate the success of each strategy.

The first project studied was Chandler Park in Detroit. Launched in 2015 by the non-profit organization Chandler Park Conservancy, the $45 million project aimed to transform the 200-acre park into an urban conservation campus. It would offer the community educational, recreational and conservation amenities. Two have already been completed: a skate park and an environmental education plaza.