- January 9, 2015
- 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 municipal data. Because we took a break over the winter holidays, this week’s column includes news from the past two weeks. Suggest stories on Twitter with #ThisWeekInData.
The policy analyst Ron Haskins published an op-ed in the New York Times celebrating the movement toward an evidence-based approach in funding social programs. Haskins cites Wyman’s Teen Outreach Program, volunteer program Reading Partners, Lancaster County (Pa.)’s Nurse-Family Partnership, and school reform program Success for All, as initiatives that have demonstrated rigorous evidence of success.
In Boston, city officials are using their first-ever analysis of student housing data to identify hundreds of possibly overcrowded apartments and inspect for possible safety violations, the Boston Globe reports.
The New Yorker profiles Providence Talks, the Rhode Island capital city’s program that’s collecting data to close the “word gap,” the phenomenon in which low-income parents are less likely to talk to their children. The initiative was the grand prize winner in 2012-13 cycle of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge.
The City of Miami announced that it has unveiled a new financial data platform that allows city officials and residents to access city budget information through interactive charts and graphs.
San Francisco plans to release a new smartphone app that will allow riders of the Muni transit system to pay their fares on their phones, part of a broader effort to rethink mobile payment options for the city’s transportation systems, the San Francisco Business Times reports.
Philadelphia launched a prototype of its next website, which was designed to be a “minimum viable product” designed over time with the help of feedback from residents and city employees, Government Technology magazine reports.
New from our team:
Here on Data-Smart City Solutions, Craig Campbell examines how Boston’s Problem Properties Task Force is delivering social value to the communities it serves and helping the city save money.
