Tag: Local Government

OneC1TY Transforms Nashville With an ‘Education-Civic-Business Ecosystem’

Posted on by robbie

Nashville’s 28th Avenue Connector may look like a simple urban development built to improve traffic. And while it is a major improvement, this innovation is building so much more for the community. The full site, called OneC1TY, over Centennial Park is bike-friendly and promotes walking too. It’s living up to its role as a “Connector” in more ways than one. For example, it’s joining educational institutions and the city’s medical district, promoting a sense of collaboration and the city’s “education-civic-business ecosystem.” The streetscape features bioswales to handle runoff, energy-efficient solar lighting, and locally-inspired art. As supporters have pointed out, it’s a “transformative example of the kind of development that a well-thought-out public infrastructure project” can create.

 

Google Creates a Better Way to Help You Find Your Local Lawmakers

Posted on by robbie

Google just rolled out a few upgrades to its Civic Information API that “lets developers connect constituents to their federal, state, county and municipal elected officials—right down to the city council district.” In a blog post, Google stated that its API has already allowed developers to create apps for U.S. elections, but few offer ways to find lawmakers at the local level. You can already see the features of the new API in action via partner websites such as Change.org and Popvox. As with any open data project, the process is ongoing and open for testing and feedback. If you’d like to help test or weigh on on the new features, visit Google’s Developer Forum.
Source: Google Developers
 

San Francisco to Let Residents Vote Online on How the City Spends Money

Posted on by robbie

San Francisco is rolling out a new “participatory budgeting” initiative that would allow residents to choose how the city spends its tax dollars. The online voting process would be the first major U.S. city to use citizen crowdsourcing to make and improve policy decisions. According to a recent article in TechCrunch, “[The city’s plan] is for each city district to vote on $100,000 in expenditures. Citizens will get to choose how the money is spent from a list of options, similar to the way they already vote from a list of ballot propositions. Topical experts will help San Francisco residents deliberate online.” This is a great example of how the United States is starting to use online tools to engage people in a way that impacts their lives. If the model can work in San Francisco, the rest of the country could be well on its way to a truly democratic government.
[Image: Steve Jennings/Getty Images For Techfellows]

How “Outcome Budgeting” Made Baltimore America’s Forwardest-Thinking Budgeter

Posted on by robbie

After Detroit, city budgets are getting a lot tighter, and a lot more attention. One city that’s doing its budgets right is Baltimore. Since the recession, Baltimore’s been able to boost its savings balance while attracting new residents by lowering property taxes. The city calls its approach “Outcome Budgeting”, which has spread to other cities like Lincoln, Neb., and Richmond, Va. It essentially means taking the long view of fiscal planning. Under current Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, budget shortfall has decreased by almost $100 million. The crucial question is whether the long game will persist across different mayoral terms; Rawlings-Blake’s first term is up next year.
 

GMO Bill Gets Second Wind

Posted on by robbie

In October, the Kauai County Council in Hawaii passed a bill that would make agricultural companies disclose more information about the pesticides and GMO crops they use. And then the Kauai mayor vetoed it. But the county council kept fighting and has successfully overridden the veto. This re-opens the way for the new law to go into effect. What’s important here is that a group of dedicated citizens stood up for their right to know more about what companies are doing near where they live and work. Especially when there are both known and unknown health risks at stake.
 

Big Data Is Helping Big Cities

Posted on by robbie

Despite all the metropolitan fiscal problems you hear about, many American cities are hitting new highs in education and health.
This is because they’re increasingly relying on huge data sets to design policy. NYPD’s Compstat program honed and enhanced its crime-fighting strategies, and in the past few years, Denver’s use of analytics raised test scores around 20 percent. The data doesn’t do the work itself, though; human workers must orient data evaluation toward a valuable target.
It’s the rosy side of government’s exploitation of new technology.
 

San Francisco’s Aggressive Plan Could Abolish Carbon Emissions

Posted on by robbie

The Bay Area recently passed a climate protection resolution that will slash carbon emissions in the region 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. If successful, the policy could dramatically change the city’s transportation landscape. According to Quartz, “The Bay Area has California’s most extensive public transportation system and its tech-savvy drivers have been earlier adopters of electric cars… But [in order to make this work] the [air district board] will also need to convert more of the region’s bus and truck fleet to carbon-free fuels and electrify diesel-powered ports.” Beyond getting more people in battery-powered cars and electric buses, the agency acts as an incubator for new technologies. “For instance, it’s helping to fund a pilot project to create an electric taxi service to link regional airports in San Francisco to the region’s cities,” according to Forbes. If these progressive measures to slash carbon emissions work in a car-centric city like San Francisco, the policy could serve as a model for the rest of the country.
 

Chicago Joins OpenGov Movement

Posted on by robbie

Chicago is the latest in a growing list of cities to open up its city code to the public by making it available online and in an open source format. Chicago City Code is the latest site to launch as part of the OpenGov Foundation’s State Decoded project. OpenGov says its Decoded project “is part of a broader initiative to bring the law – the most important information in any community – to the people in more accessible, modern formats that can be used and reused,” according to its website. You can find more information about which states currently offer the code and participate. If you’d like to bring the State Decoded project to your city or state, send an e-mail to: [email protected].