Case study · Data Vandals × Mayor’s Office of Los Angeles · 2026
LA Loves
One question for Angelenos at the city’s free World Cup watch parties: what do you love about LA? A tent, a mural and a four-part sticker survey — and the start of a new public dataset.
- June 11 – July 19, 2026
- Kick It in the Park
- Five parks, ten days
- Los Angeles, CA
The brief
The Mayor’s Office of Strategic Partnerships wanted to hear what people love about Los Angeles — and what would make it a better place to live, not just to visit.
LA Loves turned that question into a month-long, data-collecting celebration at Kick It in the Park, the city’s free public World Cup viewing parties, from the San Fernando Valley to the Harbor. Every answer becomes open data the city can use to plan community celebrations — with Super Bowl LXI and the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games on the way.
- Client
- Office of Mayor Karen Bass — Strategic Partnerships
- With
- LA Recreation and Parks · Los Angeles Council Districts
- Dates
- June 11 – July 19, 2026
- Practice
- Data Vandals (Jen Ray and Jason Forrest)
- Role
- Concept, survey design, mural, booth, data collection and visualization
- 2,700+
- sticker votes cast at the booth
- 76
- written comments about the city
- 4
- questions in the sticker survey
- 15 × 10
- foot tent, with a back-wall mural
01 · The booth
A tent you can’t walk past.
We built a 15 × 10 ft tent for the Mayor’s office and covered the back wall in a mural of the city at its sunniest — palm trees, the hills, a giant “Come on over!”
The mural does the recruiting. People stop for a photo, and stay to answer four questions.
02 · The survey
Four questions, answered with stickers.
Big printed posters, one per question, and a sheet of coloured dot stickers. Each sticker is a data point; kids and grandparents answer the same way, and everyone can see the city’s answer forming in real time. A comment wall catches what doesn’t fit on a dot.
03 · The parks
Five parks. Ten days. One question.
LA Loves travelled with Kick It in the Park, the city’s free World Cup viewing parties — a partnership between the Office of Mayor Karen Bass, the Council Districts and LA Recreation and Parks.
- June 11
- Echo Park
- June 12
- Jackie Tatum Harvard Recreation Center
- June 13
- Whitsett Fields
- Through July 19
- And on, across the city
The people who answered
04 · What it’s for
Positive data, for the next big moments.
Cities collect plenty of data about what is broken. LA Loves asks what people love and care about, and turns those answers into open data.
More than 2,700 votes and 76 written comments later, the city has the beginning of a new dataset for planning its own celebrations — and a template for asking again in every neighbourhood.
“The city wants to hear what you love — and what would make this a better place to live, not just to visit.”
- Made by
- Data Vandals — Jen Ray and Jason Forrest.
- With thanks to
- Mayor Karen Bass, Deputy Mayor Amanda Daflos and the Mayor’s strategic partnerships team for the City of Los Angeles.
- Programme
- Kick It in the Park — Office of Mayor Karen Bass, Los Angeles Council Districts and LA Recreation and Parks.