2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

98 Strengthening Communities with Neighborhood Data
Open Government Data
The open government data movement is founded on the premise that
technology can improve the transparency of processes and information
so that citizens can hold governments accountable. Advocates view government
data as a public good that should be available to the taxpayers
that funded their creation. Open data can also encourage citizen engagement
in government decisionmaking. Another argument for open data
is the added value that government data can bring to the private sector
and society in general. 12 Sanders’s essay at the end of this chapter
describes the advancement of this idea by the Obama administration
and local governments, noting it is just one component of the larger
agenda for delivering relevant information to communities. Large cities
like Chicago; San Francisco; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and New York
have taken the lead in open data, but the efforts of groups like the Sunlight
Foundation and the Open Knowledge Foundation have promoted
the ideas more broadly. As of summer 2013, data.gov listed open data
projects from 40 states and 41 counties and cities in the United States.
This movement will continue to increase the availability of nonconfidential
data relevant to neighborhood indicators, notably reported crime,
311 service requests, and property-related data. Right now, the volume of
raw data means that data analysts or software developers are the primary
users of these systems. Cities rarely publish extensive documentation or
even basic metadata for the files. The tasks of cleaning the data and crafting
appropriate indicators still remain for local data intermediaries and
other analysts, but readily available access will save users time and promote
cross-city analysis (Pettit et al. 2014a).
Data Standards
The development of standards (i.e., defined structures for different types
of data) is another growing trend related to government data that could
facilitate the availability and use of neighborhood indicators. In mid-
2009, the District of Columbia government and entrepreneurs from
SeeClickFix developed specifications for data in 311 systems, centralized
call centers, and online systems maintained by local governments
for residents to submit service requests for problems such as potholes,
bulk garbage pickups, or broken streetlights. 13 With the participation of
the organization Open Plans and other pioneer cities, the specification