Case studies: Why are some cities better run than others?
Mural of Tree of MultiCultural Life in Santa Fe, NM. Image by Jay Galvin.
As SJ faces yet another budget shortfall ($60m!), we take a look at what makes some cities deliver services without constant financial drama and high taxes. What Works Cities on Medium provides some great examples, with a focus on better public communication and protecting resident data.
The hard work of building a data-driven local government is a journey and not a destination — there is always room for improvement, and a truly well-managed city never stops looking for opportunities to innovate. Technological advances will continue to reshape how residents interact with and experience local government. New challenges and issues to address will also emerge as a result of these advancements, so city leaders must continue to evolve their skill sets and approaches in order to be prepared for a new century of governance.
We have identified new, cutting-edge practices that are emerging in the cities that are leading the way.
Strengthening Management Practices
Bloomberg Philanthropies’ 2018 American Mayors Survey found that roughly half of the mayors surveyed had appointed a chief data officer and one third had hired a chief innovation officer.
Go Deeper:
Many of our stand-out municipal leaders are also sharing ideas with each other and adopting new ways to engage residents in their work, including soliciting resident feedback and harnessing the expertise of tech-savvy residents to help develop solutions to city issues.
Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Sly James sharing the value of data- and evidence-informed decision-making.
Mayor James leveraged data and public input to pass an $800 million dollar general obligation bond in April of 2017 to fund improvements to local infrastructure. For years, infrastructure improvement ranked as the number-one priority for city residents, while satisfaction with the condition of sidewalks and streets was extremely low. With a clear mandate, Mayor James and the City Council developed a plan to raise the funds needed to address specific needs across the city. To gain support for the plan, the City shared survey data on social media and in public meetings, which ultimately led to the successful passage of the ballot measure, even with its resulting in an increase in property taxes on many families.
Today, many of these capital projects are already underway, and progress is regularly shared with the community, representing a tangible example of how communicating directly can lead to real solutions for residents.
Prioritizing Resident and Stakeholder Engagement
Improving data access is not merely an effort to appear transparent. What Works Cities wants to reward local governments for going beyond just making data available; data should be used to engage residents in setting local priorities and in how pressing issues are solved.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, Mayor G.T. Bynum has taken stakeholder engagement around data to the next level. Almost immediately after getting settled in City Hall, he started the Tulsa Urban Data Pioneers, a volunteer program comprising government workers and local residents who volunteer their free time to understand and analyze data in order to help address a wide range of problems — from tracking potholes and abandoned buildings to measuring the population’s stability and growth.
The program has uncovered important insights that inform city policy. For example, Mayor Bynum committed to increasing the number of high school seniors attending college after the Pioneers’ data analysis showed that education was the single greatest factor in determining per-capita income, even when controlling for other factors. They then realized that financial aid was a major practical barrier for students, providing the ideal opportunity for the government to take action. Mayor Bynum has now provided enhanced support to high school seniors and their families in completing federal financial aid forms. Already in the past year, the percentage of high schoolers applying to college has increased by more than 10 percent.
In our collective experience working with cities, we understand that having data for the sake of having data is pointless. In order for that data to be useful, there has to be a concerted, collaborative effort to gather, interpret, and derive insights from it.
Protecting Resident Data and Personal Information
We’ve seen the importance of this play out in the private sector, and especially with social media companies, but also in the local context as cities find themselves the target of attempts to breach private data and voting systems. The result is a high level of anxiety among Americans about data privacy and how their personal information could be used. In a recent Pew Research study, roughly half of Americans said they do not trust the federal government or social media sites to protect their data.
As more programs, services, and record-keeping is moved online, the risks of breaches and data misuse in local government will increase. Cities have a responsibility to protect their residents’ privacy and mitigate any risk associated with the various data they collect. Moving forward, cities applying for Certification will be rewarded for efforts to develop policies that manage the risk of any data breach or other manipulation and protect privacy and confidentiality. They will also earn points for efforts to harness the benefits of artificial intelligence while reducing associated risks.
Additionally, as more cities develop and utilize algorithms and predictive analytics to advance city initiatives, our Certification program will now encompass the identification and mitigation of algorithmic risk and bias. Commonly held views that algorithms create predictability and, therefore, foster impartial outcomes must be interrogated with appropriate tools, governance practices, and structures that seek to deliver services and provide support equitably throughout a city.
Read the whole thing here (behind paywall).
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