The inverse crosswalk — 2026-09-16

Every other analysis here runs city → UN: take an SDG indicator, find the municipal dataset that matches it. That can only discover what the framework already asks about. This runs it backwards — take every dataset a city publishes, find its nearest SDG indicator, and look at what is left over.

11,206 datasets from 37 city portals (language en), matched against all 519 enumerated SDG indicators — not the 442 with usable data, because a framework gap is a question about vocabulary rather than coverage.

What a result here means. A dataset far from every indicator means no SDG indicator’s text is near this dataset’s text. That is evidence about vocabulary, not proof of a conceptual gap — this project has already learned once that a null from the matcher is not evidence of absence. So the unit of evidence below is how many independent cities a theme appears in. A theme in thirty city catalogs is a category of municipal governance; a theme in one is that city’s filing habit.

Positive controls

Datasets from the hand-verified NYC crosswalk. These are known to correspond to an SDG indicator, so they must land in the high-affinity region. If they fall in the tail, the tail is measuring retrieval failure and nothing below is trustworthy.

9 of 9 located · 1 fell in the tail.

Expected correspondence	City	Dataset	Affinity	Percentile	In tail?
Road traffic deaths	New York	Motor Vehicle Collisions - Crashes	0.627	99	no
Child mortality (deaths)	New York	Infant Mortality	0.578	96	no
Maternal mortality	New York	Pregnancy-Associated Mortality	0.506	86	no
Fine particulate matter (PM2.5), annual mean	New York	Air Quality and Health Impacts	0.47	74	no
Deaths attributable to ambient air pollution	New York	Air Quality and Health Impacts	0.47	74	no
Proportion of municipal waste recycled	New York	DSNY Monthly Tonnage Data	0.438	61	no
Municipal waste collected	New York	DSNY Monthly Tonnage Data	0.438	61	no
Intentional homicide	New York	NYPD Complaint Data Historic	0.425	55	no
Inadequate housing	New York	Housing Maintenance Code Violations	0.367	21	YES

What cities publish that the SDGs have no words for

The bottom 25% of each catalog by affinity — 2,786 datasets. Below are the title phrases that recur across that tail, counted by how many independent cities use them. These are not inferred categories; they are what the cities themselves called the data.

Cities	Datasets	Phrase
7	22	street sweeping
6	10	building permits
6	8	special events
6	7	zip code
6	6	fire stations
5	5	call center
5	5	bike share
5	5	bus stops
5	5	zip codes
4	7	business licenses
4	6	work orders
4	6	bus stop
4	4	street name
4	4	council district

In detail

street sweeping — 22 datasets across 7 cities

Street Sweeping Schedule - 2018 — Chicago
BOUNDARIES_street_sweeping_zones — Austin
PRR 9545 - Street Sweeping 2013 - 2015 05.08.2015 — Oakland
Street Sweeping Districts — Cambridge
Street Sweeping Schedules — Boston

building permits — 10 datasets across 6 cities

Building Permits for Fiscal Year 2011 - 2012 — Dallas
Building Permits — Mesa
Tent - Building Permits — Cambridge
EBR Building Permits — Baton Rouge
Last 30 days building permits — San Jose

special events — 8 datasets across 6 cities

Public Programs Division Special Events — New York
FOIA Request Log - Cultural Affairs & Special Events — Chicago
EMS Special Events FY 2017 — Austin
Cultural & Special Events at El Pueblo Historical Monument — Los Angeles
Special Events Attendees — Mesa

zip code — 7 datasets across 6 cities

Modified Zip Code Tabulation Areas (MODZCTA) — New York
2023-2025 Heat Related Deaths by Zip Code — Mesa
ZIP Code — Baton Rouge
MO_2010_Zip_Code_Tabulation_Areas_shp — Kansas City
Zip Code Boundary — San Jose

fire stations — 6 datasets across 6 cities

Fire Stations — Austin
Fire Stations — Calgary
Fire Stations — Los Angeles
Fire Stations — Dallas
Fire Stations — New Orleans

call center — 5 datasets across 5 cities

311 Call Center Inquiry — New York
Performance Metrics - 311 Call Center — Chicago
311 Call Center Service Request Data - Archived 2013-2014 — Los Angeles
Service requests received by the Oakland Call Center (OAK 311) — Oakland
311 Call Center Service Requests: 2007 - March 2021 — Kansas City

bike share — 5 datasets across 5 cities

Bike Share Inspections (Historical) — New York
Metro Bike Share Trip Data — Los Angeles
Oakland Bike Share Stations — Oakland
Bike Share Docks — San Jose
Bike Share 12.15 — Santa Monica

bus stops — 5 datasets across 5 cities

Deprecated - ETS - Bus Stops by Landmarks — Edmonton
KCATA Bus Stops - Deprecated — Kansas City
Housing Bus Stops — Santa Monica
Bus Stops — Everett
RTS Bus Stops List Fall 2020 — Gainesville

zip codes — 5 datasets across 5 cities

Zip Codes within the City of Los Angeles — Los Angeles
ZIP Codes — Cambridge
BT_Zip_Codes — Baton Rouge
Zip Codes — Kansas City
Zip Codes — Providence

business licenses — 7 datasets across 4 cities

Active Credit Access Business Licenses — Austin
Historical Occupational Business Licenses 2017 — New Orleans
Active Business Licenses in Providence — Providence
Business Licenses — Norfolk

work orders — 6 datasets across 4 cities

Street Sign Work Orders — New York
Work Orders Completed: El Pueblo Historical Monument — Los Angeles
PRCF - Park Amenities Completed Work Orders — Mesa
Work Orders — Norfolk

bus stop — 6 datasets across 4 cities

Intercity Bus Stop Permits — New York
CTA - Ridership - Avg. Weekday Bus Stop Boardings in October 2012 — Chicago
Bus Stop — Baton Rouge
Everett Transit - Bus Stop Utilization — Everett

street name — 4 datasets across 4 cities

Street Name Signs Work Orders (Historical) — New York
911 Addressing - Street Name Master List — Austin
EBRP Street Name Changes — Baton Rouge
Street Name — New Orleans

council district — 4 datasets across 4 cities

Zone Updates And Staff Comments Per Council District — Austin
Parking Occupancy Tax Business Locations within Council District 13 — Los Angeles
Council District — Oakland
Zachary Council District — Baton Rouge

The same tail, clustered by embedding

A second view, kept because it groups datasets that share no vocabulary. k-means returns k clusters whether or not k themes exist, so each carries its coherence — the mean cosine of its members to its own centroid. Below 0.62, a cluster is a partition rather than a theme and is marked diffuse; 17 of 40 are. Read those as noise, not as findings.

Coherence	Cities	Datasets	Terms	Closest SDG indicator
0.992	3	231	dfs, check, speed, sign	Beach litter items per unit of surface area
0.839	5	70	libraries, location, holds	Countries with users/communities participati
0.81	6	42	foia, request, log	Countries that have legislative, administrat
0.766	2	50	repave, miles, arterials, arterial, lane	Number of deaths rate due to road traffic in
0.742	7	44	insight, edmonton, survey, community	Participation rate in organized learning (on
0.713	24	159	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Land area
0.707	10	57	election, voting, general, results	Number of local governments
0.702	23	151	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Countries that have national urban policies
0.692	19	92	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Number of deaths rate due to road traffic in
0.687	2	32	optimized, corridors, timing, signal	Progress toward productive and sustainable a
0.673	19	128	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Land area
0.672	13	56	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Number of deaths rate due to road traffic in
0.662	3	100	des	Coastal Eutrophication: Total Nitrogen (micr
0.661	16	99	school	Extent to which global citizenship education
0.658	21	90	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Countries that adopt and implement constitut
0.654	17	72	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Number of local governments
0.654	6	51	edmonton	Countries that have national urban policies
0.654	4	63	stairway, sidewalks	Number of deaths rate due to road traffic in
0.64	22	141	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Number of deaths rate due to road traffic in
0.64	15	81	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Countries that adopt and implement constitut
0.638	20	88	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Net inbound official development assistance
0.629	19	78	bike, parking	Number of deaths rate due to road traffic in
0.622	6	19	covid-	Number of total conflict-related deaths
0.62 (diffuse)	16	42	csb, update, response, time	Police reporting rate for robbery in the pre
0.619 (diffuse)	18	67	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Countries with users/communities participati
0.619 (diffuse)	13	41	ems, calls	Number of deaths due to disaster
0.611 (diffuse)	17	57	neighborhood, street	Number of deaths rate due to road traffic in
0.611 (diffuse)	14	43	sweeping, schedule, street	Countries with procedures in law or policy f
0.608 (diffuse)	8	25	beudo, engagement, employee, buildings	International financial flows to developing
0.605 (diffuse)	20	67	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Land area
0.601 (diffuse)	7	55	school	Adjusted gender parity index for participati
0.6 (diffuse)	10	21	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Beach litter items per unit of surface area
0.6 (diffuse)	7	43	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Score of adoption and implementation of nati
0.598 (diffuse)	17	36	analytics	Proportion of results indicators drawn from
0.597 (diffuse)	26	88	permits, building	Countries with procedures in law or policy f
0.593 (diffuse)	9	40	storm	Total inbound official flows for infrastruct
0.58 (diffuse)	14	59	employee	Total government revenue, in local currency
0.514 (diffuse)	16	47	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Countries with integrated biodiversity value
0.513 (diffuse)	13	35	library, austin	Total inbound official flows for infrastruct
0.481 (diffuse)	11	26	(no term covers a fifth of this cluster)	Countries that have legislative, administrat