ANNOUNCEMENT · OCTOBER 2026
Neighbor-Led Data Planning Announcement: Joy Repair Joins Burton Advisors for Massive Impact
A two-year partnership brings data center developers, tech leaders, elected officials, and neighborhood leaders to one table, with neighbors owning their own data, their own network, and their own measures of success.
Juneteenth at Riverside Park, 2019. Photo: City of Indianapolis, Mayor's Office. Public domain.
Data center leaders get paid today. Neighbors live here for eternity.
— MARC McALEAVEY, FOUNDER, JOY REPAIR
Burton Advisors and Joy Repair have joined together to launch Neighbor-Led Data Planning, a two-year strategic collaboration to help Indianapolis neighborhoods get ready for data centers and every other big investment headed their way. Neighbors will hold the information, the infrastructure, and the first and last word on what gets built where they live.
The partnership arrives during a pause. Marion County stopped approving new data centers through December 31, 2027, after a year of packed hearings in Martindale-Brightwood, Irvington, and Decatur Township. The city has started a study expected to produce new zoning rules in late summer 2027, and Neighbor-Led Data Planning will make sure neighborhoods walk into that process with their own facts, their own leaders, and their own proposals.
BURTON ADVISORS
Burton Advisors is Indiana's Local Government Navigators, a bipartisan firm that helps companies win the votes, permits, and approvals major projects need across all 92 Indiana counties. Founder Jeremy D. Burton brings eighteen years in Indiana's local and state government, and he will lead the work with developers, utilities, and government.
JOY REPAIR
Joy Repair is Marc McAleavey's Indianapolis company, built on thirty-five years in Indianapolis neighborhoods, from the Zawadi Exchange in Mapleton-Fall Creek to the resident engagement work of the Great Indy Neighborhoods Initiative. Joy Repair will lead the work with neighborhoods through its Neighborhood Data School, roving listeners, and play-based sessions.
"I have spent eighteen years helping projects get through city halls and county councils across Indiana, and this year showed me that projects stall when neighbors meet them for the first time at a hearing. Neighbor-Led Data Planning gives developers, utilities, and elected officials a clear and honest way to sit down with neighbors early, while there is still time to shape a project together. That is good for the neighborhood, and it is good for anyone who wants to build in Indiana."
What neighbors build
Everything rests on four pieces that fit together, all driven by Meta Macro Social Work, and the idea under all four is neighborhood data sovereignty, which means the people who live in a place decide what is known about it, who holds that knowledge, and how it gets used.
Neighbor-Led Data Planning.
Neighbors set the questions, collect the answers, and decide what the answers mean, and outside experts come in as helpers. It joins the quality of life planning tradition Indianapolis has trusted for twenty years and adds one small shift: the plans flow toward each other, neighborhood to neighborhood, instead of up a funnel to be ranked.
The Neighborhood Census.
Neighbors count themselves every month, starting with the gifts of their heads, hearts, and hands. The block owns its data, nobody's address is ever stored, and anyone can opt out at any time.
The Neighborhood Data Center and NeighborhoodLM.
A small data center the size of a bookshelf, buried in Indiana clay, cooled by the earth, and using no water. It runs NeighborhoodLM, a neighborhood large language model that answers neighbors' questions from what they choose to share, and it powers a neighborhood-owned Wi-Fi network.
Bottom-Up Indicators.
Neighbors choose what gets measured and vote on their measures every year. Developers report to the neighborhood first on water, power, noise, jobs, and taxes, and every claim is labeled truth, probability, possibility, or absurdity.
Every month, neighbors decide
The census drives what Marc calls Pro Se democracy, from the legal term for people who represent themselves. Neighbors read their own data, make their own arguments, and vote.
- 1
Count.
The monthly census is updated and reviewed by neighbors.
- 2
Ask.
Why is this happening? What would happen if?
- 3
Propose.
Neighbors put forward decisions and debate them openly.
- 4
Vote.
A simple majority, binding on neighborhood spending.
- 5
Act.
An implementation team of staff and volunteers.
- 6
Evaluate.
Did it work? What changed? What would we change?
People walk away feeling good about their lives
Joy is the reason Joy Repair has its name. In Mapleton-Fall Creek the Zawadi Exchange mapped neighbors' gifts and built connections until one day people danced in the streets on 29th Street, and they called it the Miracle of 29th Street. Every Neighbor-Led Data Planning session opens with play, moves into making things with our hands, and ends by carrying what we made to someone outside the room. Every game is built so the person with the least access can join in fully, with interpreters, childcare, and food on the table. Neighbors turn their data into murals, songs, zines, and block parties, and the art, the credit, and the story stay with the people who made them.
Who comes to the table
Data center developers and tech leaders.
An honest first contact with a neighborhood, a community benefit framework built with neighbors, and a path that ends in a signed agreement instead of a two-year fight.
Neighborhoods and neighbors.
The census, a neighborhood-owned network and data center, bottom-up indicators, a Community Data Trust that protects every neighbor's information, and training to use all of it.
Elected and city leaders.
A tested way to bring residents and developers together, neighborhood data they can cite, and policy language drawn from real practice.
What comes next
The partners will meet with developers, city leaders, and neighborhood associations through the end of 2026. The first cohort of six neighborhoods begins its Neighborhood Data School in early 2027, and neighbors will bring their own data and proposals to the city's data center rules before the pause ends on December 31, 2027.
Bring Neighbor-Led Data Planning to your block
Neighborhood leaders, developers, funders, and public officials are all welcome at this table.
About Burton Advisors. Burton Advisors LLC is Indiana's Local Government Navigators, a bipartisan firm that helps companies secure the votes, permits, and approvals major projects need across all 92 Indiana counties. The firm works on data center permitting, small modular nuclear reactor siting, broadband and telecom permitting, tax incentive strategy, and public relations for hearings and community meetings. Founder Jeremy D. Burton has eighteen years of experience in Indiana's local and state government. Learn more at burtonadvisors.io.
About Joy Repair. Joy Repair is an Indianapolis company founded by Marc McAleavey, MSW, a civic theorist, writer, and adjunct faculty member at the Indiana University School of Social Work. Its work is driven by Meta Macro Social Work, Marc's framework for how institutions and the stories a place tells shape life across generations. Joy Repair treats joy, relationships, and neighborhood data as civic infrastructure that neighbors can own, measure, and repair.
Photo credits
- Juneteenth at Riverside Park, 2019 (three photos): City of Indianapolis, Mayor's Office, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indianapolis%27_second_annual_Juneteenth_celebration,_2019-06-22_at_Riverside_Park_P062219AZS_(48140618051).jpg
- Indy Pride Parade, 2023 (two photos): City of Indianapolis, Mayor's Office, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2023_Indy_Pride_Parade-06.jpg
- Indianapolis International Festival, 2007: Paul J Everett, CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:International_festival_dance_-_2042079380.jpg
- Artist Jarrod Dortch, 2021: The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jarrod_Dortch_(The_Children%27s_Museum_of_Indianapolis).jpg
- Warman Avenue, Haughville: Nyttend, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Warman_Avenue_in_Haughville.jpg
- Martindale-Brightwood Branch Library: Momoneymoproblemz, CC BY-SA 4.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indianapolis_Public_Library_Martindale-Brightwood_Branch.jpg
- Indiana Avenue and the Cultural Trail, 2024: ComplexRational, CC BY-SA 4.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indiana_culture_trail,_looking_SE_along_Indiana_Avenue_towards_downtown,_October_2024.jpg