Collaborative Study Lab
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Citizens as a Platform for Civic Improvement
Recently the New York City Council passed what some open government advocates see as a “landmark” bill to increase government transparency and citizen access to machine readable data sets. While this legislation is definitely a welcomed triumph for the Gov 2.0 movement and a positive example for “closed” or “inert governments everywhere, should transparency legislation be the primary focus for civic technologists? Some may say that civic hackers obviously need government data sets before they can build civic apps, but should nimble and innovative civic technologists wait on slow moving bureaucracies to lead the way? Should citizens as a platform be just as much of a focus as government as a platform?
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What Does Open Budgeting Mean for Communities?
Matthew Hall
Providing citizen access to public data is a popular trend among city governments, with NYC recently announcing that every check in their register will now be accessible to the public, but do existing efforts at transparent government spending actually engage citizens and give them a better understanding of their communities? The short answer is not really. The long answer is:
