Case study · Data Vandals × Mayor’s Office of Los Angeles · 2026
LA Loves
- June 11 – July 19, 2026
- Kick It in the Park
- Five parks, nineteen days
- Los Angeles, CA
LA Loves in motion: the booth and its mural, the survey posters, the sticker votes and what Angelenos told us.
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
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, and a giant “Come on over!” The mural does the recruiting. People stop for a photo, and stay to answer four surveys.
02 · The survey
Questions from the city, 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. Nineteen days. Four posters.
LA Loves travelled with Kick It in the Park, the city’s 109 free World Cup watch parties in parks across Los Angeles — 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
- Also
- Cheviot Hills and Westwood Recreation Center
04 · Why it matters
Love is civic data too
Cities already track what needs fixing through 311 calls and service requests, but they rarely track what residents love and feel attached to. The City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office partnered with Data Vandals to create a new kind of civic dataset: one that asks Angelenos what they love, how they want to connect, and what their hopes are for their city – especially as the City prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028.
“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.
- Microsite
- Data Vandals and Brooke Kong, with the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Partnerships (laloves28.org).