Collaborative Study Lab

Matthew Hall

@hallm13

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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