Pracre turns the parcel and assessment files your municipality already publishes into 2D and 3D maps of value and tax revenue per acre. Drop the files in, and it works out the rest.
Pracre
A value per acre map makes the Strong Towns case in one picture. Compact, walkable blocks return far more per acre than big-box stores and strip malls, and the difference is plain once it is mapped. Making one used to take GIS software and a free weekend. Pracre makes it an afternoon's work, on the data your town already publishes.
Export a titled image with its legend and credits, or a 3D model for a slide, and show the room which parts of town carry the budget.
Export a self-contained 2D or 3D web map and paste the embed code into your group's site. Visitors pan, tilt and hover for each tile's numbers.
Download your town's parcels and assessment roll, drop them in, and see the pattern for yourself in minutes. Two finished samples are one click away.
The whole Township of Langley in 200 m hexagons, saved with Export 3D, then Web map. Drag to pan, right-drag or Ctrl-drag to tilt and turn, and hover over a tile for its numbers.
Pracre does the fiddly parts. A checklist on the left says what is done and what is still missing, so you always know the next step.
Drag parcel shapes and assessment tables onto the window, in whatever format your town publishes. Pracre reads every column and works out which hold IDs, values, tax classes, lot sizes and locations.
Each guess shows in the import window with colour-coded headings, next to a map of where the rows land. Change any of them from a drop-down and the map updates as you go.
Values in a separate file are joined to the parcels by the ID both files share, such as a folio, PID, APN or roll number. Pracre finds that ID by comparing the actual values, then places anything left over by location.
The import window says how many records matched, and how.
Values alone make a value per acre map. To map tax revenue, fill in the Tax Rates table. The tax classes in your data are already listed. Enter mill rates, percentages or fractions, or one default rate for everything, or import a table of codes and rates.
Switch between parcels, hexagon tiles and square tiles, and between a flat and a 3D map. Tall red columns produce the most per acre, low blue ones the least.
Click any parcel or tile for its value, tax and area, and how it ranks against the rest of town.
Export a PNG with its title, legend and credits, a web map with embed code for your site, a coloured 3D model for Blender or PowerPoint, or GeoJSON and CSV for further analysis.
Save the project to keep everything, imported data included, in one .pracre file that opens on any computer.
Open data comes in every shape. Pracre is built to take it as it is.
CSV, TSV, Excel (.xlsx), GeoJSON, Esri JSON from ArcGIS, zipped or loose Shapefiles, KML and KMZ. Drag files onto the window or use Import Data.
Parcel polygons or points, latitude and longitude in either order or in one column, degrees-minutes-seconds, WKT, WKB and GeoJSON geometry, MGRS and USNG, UTM text, Plus codes, geohashes or projected X/Y.
All 7,800 EPSG and ESRI projected systems and 1,400 geographic ones are built in, and convert to within a centimetre of PROJ. NAD27, OSGB36, ED50 and Tokyo datums shift to WGS 84, and unlabelled coordinates are tried in every system near the map.
Total value, land plus improvements, one value column per tax class, or the tax amount itself. Add mill rates, percentages or fractions per class. Rolls that repeat every property for several years use the latest.
Joins values to parcels by folio, PID, APN, roll or parcel number, found by comparing the actual values, then by location for anything left over.
Units stacked on their common property, or drawn as many small shapes at one address, fold into the lot they sit on, so a complex reads as one lot instead of a hundred slivers.
Every guess shows in an import window with colour-coded column headings, and the Data Checklist says what is done and what is still missing.
Tiles from 25 m to 2 km smooth out lot-by-lot noise. Divide by lot area for net value per acre or by the whole tile for gross, and cap spikes at the 99th percentile.
Tilt and turn the map with a right-drag or Ctrl-drag. Height, opacity and the gap between tiles are all adjustable, per acre or per hectare.
Quantile, natural breaks (Jenks), logarithmic or equal interval classes, 3 to 12 brackets and six colour ramps. Exempt properties and missing lot areas show separately, so parks and schools don't squash the scale.
PNG exports with title, legend and credits, ready for a slide deck, a council delegation or social media.
Self-contained 2D or 3D pages with the data inside, plus copy-and-paste embed code for your website.
Coloured .glb models in metres, with the same heights as the map, for Blender, PowerPoint, Windows 3D Viewer and most 3D tools.
Take the results into QGIS, ArcGIS, Excel or Google Sheets for further analysis.
Save everything, imported data included, in a .pracre file that opens on any computer. Five base maps, or none at all to work offline.
Every screenshot here is the bundled samples, opened in Pracre and changed with a few clicks.
Most assessment authorities and municipal open data portals publish parcel boundaries and assessment rolls. Search your city or county's open data site for "parcels", "assessment", "tax roll" or "property".
In BC, municipal open data portals and BC Assessment rolls work well. In the United States, county GIS and assessor sites usually offer parcel downloads with assessed values. Can't find your town's files? Ask on the STCD Discord.
File, then Sample Data, opens two finished samples. The Township of Langley sample covers the whole township from its open data, 2024 parcels and assessments. The Port Huron sample has every parcel in the City of Port Huron, Michigan, with 2024 taxable values.
Free for Windows, macOS and Linux, released October 23, 2026. The files below always come from the latest release on GitHub.
WindowsWindows 10 and 11
InstallerAdds Pracre to the Start menu and opens .pracre files18.4 MBPortableUnzip and run, nothing to install16.6 MBmacOSmacOS 12 or later, Intel and Apple silicon
Disk imageOpen it and drag Pracre to Applications34.5 MBZipped appThe same app without the disk image32.7 MBLinuxUbuntu 22.04 or later, Debian 12 and others
Ubuntu and Debian packagesudo apt install ./Pracre-Linux-x64.deb15.3 MBOther LinuxNeeds WebKitGTK 4.1; ./install.sh adds a menu entry16.5 MBWindows may show a SmartScreen notice for a new app. Choose More info, then Run anyway.
macOS asks once. On macOS 15 and later choose Open Anyway under System Settings, Privacy & Security after the first try. On earlier versions right-click Pracre and choose Open.
Linux needs WebKitGTK 4.1 and GTK 3. The .deb pulls them in with sudo apt install.
Trouble installing? Ask on the STCD Discord or open an issue.
Yes. Pracre is free and open source under the GNU General Public License v3. There is no account, subscription or usage limit, and the source is on GitHub.
No. Pracre reads the files your town publishes and works out which columns hold IDs, values, tax classes, lot sizes and locations. A checklist says what is still missing, and every guess can be changed from a drop-down. If you get stuck, ask on the STCD Discord.
Parcel boundaries (or points) and an assessed value for each property. Most municipal and county open data portals publish both; search them for "parcels", "assessment", "tax roll" or "property". Tax rates are optional and turn a value per acre map into a tax revenue per acre map.
No. Everything except the base map runs on your own computer. Choose None as the base map to work with no connection at all.
Yes. Every EPSG and ESRI coordinate system is built in, US APNs and Canadian folios link the same way, and Pracre ships with a Port Huron, Michigan sample beside the Township of Langley one.
Units stacked on their common property, or drawn as many small shapes at one civic address, are folded into the lot they sit on. A townhouse complex reads as one productive lot instead of a hundred slivers.
Yes. Export 2D or Export 3D, then Web map, saves one HTML file with the data inside, and Pracre hands you the embed code to paste into your page. The live map on this page is one of those files.
New apps from small open source projects trigger these notices until they build a reputation. On Windows choose More info, then Run anyway. On macOS 15 and later choose Open Anyway under System Settings, Privacy & Security after the first try; on earlier versions right-click Pracre and choose Open. Every release is built in public by GitHub Actions from the source in the repository.
No. Pracre is an STCD project, built by Strong Towns advocates and shared for any town to use. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Strong Towns.
Open an issue on GitHub, or ask in the STCD Discord, where people help each other get tools running on their own town's data.
Strong Towns Community Developers & Designersstrongtowns.dev
Pracre is one of the open source tools gathered by the STCD, local Strong Towns advocates who build tools for their own conversations and share them, so the next town doesn't start from scratch. Value per acre maps, parking audits, housing trackers and more, all free to reuse.
Authors
Bug reports, fixes and ideas are welcome on GitHub, and the next name on this list could be yours.
Built with Go and Wails. Maps drawn with MapLibre GL JS, base maps © OpenStreetMap contributors served by OpenFreeMap, Excel import by Excelize. Coordinate systems from the EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset (© IOGP) and Esri, by way of PROJ. Sample data from Township of Langley open data under the Open Government Licence - Township of Langley, and the City of Port Huron.
Free, open source, and ready for the files your town already publishes.
Pracre
James Hansen