- July 8, 2016
- Civic Data
Each week we will bring you a summary of what happened this week on our site, on Twitter, and in the wider world of civic data. Suggest stories on Twitter with #ThisWeekInData.
The City of San José established a new Office of Civic Innovation and announced a new Deputy City Manager and Director of Civic Innovation and Digital Strategies. The office will work with the existing innovation team to implement the San José Smart City Vision, which includes plans to make the city safe, sustainable, inclusive, and user-friendly.
Stephen Goldsmith argued that the next generation of public employees needs an understanding of both policy and data, noting that cities’ new technology efforts will not work unless their workforces evolve in tandem. He points to examples like San Francisco’s Data Academy and the University of Chicago’s dual degree in computer science and public policy as key efforts to broaden public-sector skillsets.
CivSource reported that Chapel Hill, NC and San Diego, CA both launched new open data portals. Chapel Hill’s portal is billed as a service of its public library and currently features 31 datasets. San Diego’s DataSD portal includes a data inventory, a feature to vote on datasets to release, and a budget visualization tool.
StateScoop profiled the ways that Washington, D.C.’s Department of For-Hire Vehicles is using data to improve its operations and transparency. The department is using a new cloud-based tool to analyze taxi use trends and is working to open its data to the public.
Route Fifty wrote about a new version of Boston’s situational awareness tool, which was used during July Fourth celebrations to ensure public safety. The Department of Innovation and Technology’s geographic information system (GIS) team built the tool to help the city respond to large-scale events or disasters through visualized data on emergency response, 911 and 311 calls, and more.
The Wall Street Journal covered an MIT pilot project called Underworlds that is using robots to analyze sewage in Boston and Cambridge. The robots collect and test samples in sewers to identify infectious diseases, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and drugs with the hope of enabling better monitoring of population health in cities.
Here on Data-Smart, Ash Fellow Charles Chieppo analyzed Columbus, OH’s recent winning bid for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge. He points to the way the city was able to leverage investments from local stakeholders to strengthen its bid as a key asset that has lessons for other cities looking for economic growth.
