Assignment:
Pick a topic you would be interested in writing in. Please also find charts, pictures, and graphics that can be used for your topic. Your topic only has to be 1 page including picture and charts and what not.
Big Cities, Big Data: How "Smart Cities" Improve Lives & Save Money 2017
News Letter:
1: Introduction to the Topic:
2: History- What are cities doing to integrate data/technology to enhance people's lives:
• Cities that are participating (Long Beach, LA)
• What has LA done:
• How the city staff are participating
• Example used: Cleaning LA streets → How did they utilize data → LA used data to create an index to judge how clean or dirty a street was then they rated all the streets in LA. Then used the rating to determine how much resources they would dedicate to each street. Then they provided this information to the constituents. So if a person wanted to see how their streets compare to other streets or exactly how much resources are being dedicated to their streets they could.
Long Beach:
• They found out through using data and technology that the majority of their crime was being done by a small group of people. They were able to see how much resources were being directed to that and start the discussion on how to reduce that.
3: How and where can cities use technology and data
• Transportation (See why people are opting for ride share. See how many people are using public transit, use this information to perhaps change a bus route or create new bus stops)
• Waste: How much are people throwing away. Should there be a change from a paying just for a trash can to paying for what you throw away. Analyze how much people are throwing away compared recycling.
• Transparency between government and constituents
• Education, homelessness, saftey, green, etc
4: Culture of Cities- How to change the mindset and encourage innovation
• People don't equate government and innovation→ people think government is old school
• How can governments entice the change according to Long Beach Mayor:
• Talk a lot about it
• Set-up or reconstruct systems (i.e. departments/agencies) to invite innovation
• Bring in third party (i.e. Bloomberg, Code for America, City Mart) to validate the change you want to make. People not stuck in the inside to view the problem and give opinions.
• Bring in younger people, entrepreneurs from college to being in fresh ideas.
Why it's important to change mindset
• Because you can illicit change until everyone is onboard
5: Private Sector (Businesses and Foundations→ Philanthropies) Role:
• Help government monetize their assets (transportation, police, waste) correctly to offset the operation costs and become more efficient
• Provide the expertise in utilizing data
• Be the third party to see where the issues of (efficiency issues may be the lack of communication between agencies or departments.)
• Encourage consumer centric models
• Encourage people to also take action to actually make a change (Long Beach's implementation of mini RFP (Proposals) to solve issues from the source (for example instead of sending a RFP for a new street light, the send out a mini RFP to get ideas to reduce traffic)
• Make it more consumer centric (make the constituents happy)
• Pokemon Go Example→ government and private sector working together → they were able to get the creators of pokemon go to place pokemons in museums, city parks to encourage more people to visit those places.
6: Why is this good--Summary-- how can people see if their city is participating
• Makes things more efficient
• Makes people feel involved and that the government is actually working for them (Long Beach created this new app that allowed people to send requests/complaints. They found that they received way more inquiries through the app then phone calls or emails. The app allowed someone for example to take a picture of graffiti or broken sidewalk, fill out a form and send it to the government. The government then was able to get an idea of what people wanted and take the steps to fix it. And once it was fixed they would send an email to the person telling them that it's fixed.)
• Encourages transparency
• Go online and see what information about your city is on the website. See if they have an innovation department,
• How you can get involved→ talk to your city people→ city council meetings.