The simplest reason for why open government data makes sense is that government data belongs to the people – the gathering, maintenance, and analysis of government data is paid for by tax dollars, so citizens should have access to this data.
To be useful this data needs to be in a central location and cataloged so it can be findable. It also has to be published in “machine-readable format” so that the user of that data has the ability to perform their own analysis on the data. A .pdf on a hidden page of an agency website doesn’t cut it.
Transparency depends on access to information about what government does.
Open data accomplishes this.
Yours truly got a sweet Tweet two days ago
Bloomberg Cities tweeted: .@WhatWorksCities is helping 100 mid-sized US #cities use #data & #evidence to make better decisions: #WhatWorks
Mesa applied for and was accepted in an invitation to join Bloomberg Philanthropies WhatWorksCities on Aug 05 of last year.As of Jan 05, 2016 - six months later - City Hall is still wondering where to begin. Bureaucratic inertia maybe? In some glorious and colorful graphics presented at an Economic Development Advisory Board meeting,
Where to begin was followed with
"City-wide Cross-Functional Collaborations"
1. Transform Neighborhoods
2. Increase prosperity of Mesa residents
-[apologies to Robert Downey Jr. He's recovered]
Here a brief 1:03 Chicago Tech YouTube video
Published on Jan 18, 2016
Overview of OpenGrid, an open-source geo-spatial platform that lets users explore events that happen around
For Spanish speakers a video from Ecuador
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