The Benefits of Interactive Local Government Information on the Internet

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/464&quot; target="”_blank”">a recent blog entry</a>,
I looked at how a couple of Connecticut towns are using the Internet to
get citizen feedback and provide transparency. But some cities have
gone much further, according to <a href="http://citiwire.net/post/34/&quot; target="”_blank”">a
syndicated column by Neal Peirce</a>. <br>
<br>
Cities and their citizens are starting to make use of what is known as
Web 2.0, the interactive, collaborative aspects of the Internet. <a href="http://www.baltimorecity.gov/government/citistat/index.php&quot; target="”_blank”">Baltimore</a>
and Washington, D.C. have taken the lead. Washington's efforts have
been led by chief technology officer Vivek Kundra, born in India,
raised in Tanzania, and someone who seems to have the belief in government
service and citizen participation that immigrants often feel more strongly. Washington's city government has
instituted what it calls a <a href="http://dcstat.octo.dc.gov/dcstat/site/default.asp&quot; target="”_blank”">Citywide Data
Warehous</a>e, which pulls together data, by ward, on crime, service
requests, housing complaints, etc, and provides 215 real-time data
feeds for anyone to work with.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/489">Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.</a>
<br>
<br>
"Our dream," says Kundra, "is to have
activists out there looking at our data, slicing and dicing it, and
providing approaches and connections we may not have thought of."<br>
<br>
You can even look at <a href="http://capstat.oca.dc.gov/mapping/&quot; target="”_blank”">maps with
the data laid out on them</a>.<br>
<br>
Toronto has something called <a href="http://illegalsigns.ca/&quot; target="”_blank”">IllegalSigns.ca</a>,
which combines its data with Google maps to show where illegal
billboards are. <a href="http://www.crimereports.com/&quot; target="”_blank”">CrimeReports.com</a>
is trying to get other cities to post their crime statistics by street
location, and besides Washington, Phoenix, Portland OR, Cincinnati,
Columbus, and lots of smaller cities and towns are involved.<br>
<br>
One goal of government ethics is to enable more citizen participation
due to more trust in government and belief that citizen involvement is
desired. Nothing says this better, especially to younger citizens for
whom internet interactivity is a normal part of life, than this sort of
innovative and democratic use of the internet.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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