Mass Urban

“WAYS & MEANS: Disrupting City Hall to Open Government

MARK ALAN HUGHES | NEXT AMERICAN CITY

August 21, 2012

You probably know more about the locale for tomorrow night’s House Hunters International, or the flavors on next week’s Cupcake Wars, than you do about construction planned for across your street or building code violations on your block.

Ever since Walter Annenberg invented TV Guide (in Philadelphia, by the way), the accessibility of programming data has been continuously improved. And since one thing leads to the next, these days you can access that TV schedule from a device in your pocket and then program your DVR to record shows, post the fact that you’ve scheduled a recording on social media, etc., etc. and, let me just say, etc.

The technology that enables this very contemporary reality TV-topia isn’t restricted to one’s viewing habits. Innovations in digital media and wireless technology have literally remade how we consume information, putting formerly ubiquitous technologies such as the traditional boob tube on the fast train to obsolescence, “disrupting” the existing market and, in turn, the way we perform basic activities.

In Philadelphia, there has been lots of talk — and progress — about disrupting the way we as citizens interact with our government. In particular, there has been quite a bit of interest in open data — or the release of data by governments, transit agencies and others to empower citizens and engage entrepreneurs.

It turns out that someone in City Hall was listening to all the clamor. Under the leadership of Commissioner Carlton Williams, the Department of Licenses and Inspections has launched a new public tool that provides meaningful access to data, allowing people to search and map information from a huge list of topics: Vacancy and code violations, building permits, zoning appeals, food licenses, sign permits and so on.

On its face, this is pretty simple stuff: Taking information that has been around for decades, even centuries, and simply putting it into a map on a web-accessible screen. There are similar moves happening in local government, such as the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority’s Philly LandWorks simple tool for finding and buying property, and the Office of Property Assessment’s Property Search simple tool for determining the assessed value and taxes due on property.

But this simplicity is deceiving. These tools could be the “disruptive technology” we’ve been waiting for, and could very well rock the status quo by the very virtue of their slightly retrograde simplicity. (The key citation here is Clayton Christensen’s 1997 book, The Innovators Dilemma.)

The layering and accessibility of these data sets have the potential to change the practice of both policymakers and private citizens, as well as how these two relate to each other.”

Via: Next American City

Image: An interactive map gives data about the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections, such as the L&I violations shown in this screen grab. Credit: City of Philadelphia

“I Wish This Was… Making Real What Happens On the Internet

DAVID THIER | NEXT AMERICAN CITY June 15, 2012

Candy Chang moved to New Orleans in 2010. A small, intense woman, her background was in architecture and design. She had been living in Finland, but like scores of idealistic twentysomethings, she found herself drawn to the Crescent City. She was lured by the notion of becoming part of the burgeoning recovery that was changing whole neighborhoods in ways nobody ever predicted before Hurricane Katrina turned reality on its head. As an artist, she saw a canvas.

New Orleans was changing fast in 2010. The city was still reeling from the storm — many citizens had either decided they were never going to return, or realized they would never be able to. Those that had made their way back, or coming for the first time, were carving away rot as quickly as they could. Others were settling comfortably into it. The Marigny and adjacent Bywater neighborhood — about two miles downriver from the already-restored French Quarter — radiated emptiness and energy in the span of a single block. It was a shell, and the future was up for grabs.

Chang wanted a way to explore what recovery held for the fast-changing area, long an understated destination for bohos fast turning into a kind of lusher and drunker incarnation of Williamsburg. She thought she could find a way to project the desires of a shifting population on to the environment around her. She printed up red and white stickers with room to write in the middle: “I Wish This Was _____.”

People started putting up stickers all over town. There were some grumblings about the declarative vs. the subjunctive, but the grammar of the stickers was more primal than that sort of discussion could understand. People wanted stores, people wanted homes, people wanted tacos, people wanted busses, people wanted safety. Slowly, the empty canvasses of vacant storefronts became a blueprint for a healthier environment.

It was when people started to talk to each other using the stickers that Chang realized there might be something going on here that could go past a simple art project. Looking at it from one angle, she had just turned a real wall into a Facebook wall. She didn’t know where to go next.

One person wrote “I Wish This Was a Farmer’s Market.” Somebody responded “Me too!”

One person wrote: “I Wish This Was a Bakery.” Someone responded: “If you get the financing, I’ll do the baking!” There had to be a way to get that to happen.

In 2011, “I Wish This Was” made the jump from the storefront to the Internet and became Neighborland. Like the storefronts, it’s a sounding board for a better community, except now it’s moving at broadband speeds. People are still asking for busses and groceries, but people are also asking for computer science degrees at Tulane, recycling programs and zoning ordinances And the right people are listening. The neighborhoods where it has been launched are changing at breakneck speeds, and Neighborland is hoping to give their residents a stronger voice in how that happens.

The tool is, from a nuts and bolts standpoint, not that much different from Twitter or Facebook. People talk, people second what others have said, people bounce ideas up and down. As far as Neighborland is concerned, an Internet discussion is a nice distraction but not the main product. The streets are where the real action is. The trouble is getting there.

The resemblance to social media like Twitter and Facebook turned out to be prophetic. Neighborland recently attracted big investment from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone’s Obvious as a way to take the social interactions pioneered by other programs and create civic engagement in a more intentional way. They’re cautiously making the transition from an art project in New Orleans to a tool that could change the ways communities interact with themselves and their cities everywhere.”

Via: Next American City

Photo: Candy Chang created the social media app Neighborland after making street art that asked people to participate in their surroundings. Credit: Candy Chang