5 ms·

Every City Should Have an API: Let’s Start With Watertown, MA

87 points by apievangelist 15y ago

majmun 15y ago
there should be API but for programming the city. and regulations written in programming language.
chsonnu 15y ago
Maybe Watertown is different but every local government I've had to deal with is crawling with luddites.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  The worst part of that isn't that they don't know how to set up their own technology - it's that they get sold on whatever snake oil salesman takes them out to the most dinners, and overpromises the most while keeping it plausible.
- untog 15y ago
  It's a slow process, for sure. It's difficult to even explain the utility of an API to the non tech-savvy until you show them an app that uses the data. I live in NYC and they're doing a great job- but change isn't immediate. I'm really interested in the area of governmental data- I feel like there's a need/use for an open wiki style directory of info, but http://opengovernmentdata.org/ http://opengovernmentdata.org/ is already a good resource.
  - ddw 15y ago
    I agree that it's a slow process, but it's happening. At the city level, it's good to have someone within the Mayor's office or City Council that really cares about it. It's starting to happen here in Philly with http://www.opendataphilly.org http://www.opendataphilly.org
byoung2 15y ago
For the city of Los Angeles, I would love an API that takes a street address and an array of options and returns the street parking restrictions that apply. There are lots of places with confusing signage (e.g. http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/images/joeyredmond/typicalparkinginlosangeles.jpg http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/images/joeyredmond/typicalpar...), and it would be nice to get a boolean response to the question "Can I park here now?"
- jtchang 15y ago
  My god I would love that. Can it have a guarantee that you won't get a parking ticket? Just kidding. That said with a tool like that wouldn't the # of parking tickets issue by any city go down and thus they would have an incentive not to allow such a tool to be widely deployed? I swear that parking signs are deliberately put up to confuse people so they can get more revenue!
  - byoung2 15y ago
    Well, according to their mission statement, their goal is not to generate revenue, but "to ensure transportation routes in Los Angeles flow safely and are not blocked" (http://ladot.lacity.org/tf_Parking_Enforcement.htm http://ladot.lacity.org/tf_Parking_Enforcement.htm) Of course we know the real reason is $$$. But if we take them at their word, providing access to this data would help them achieve their goal by helping motorists park properly and legally.
- soldarnal 15y ago
  Agreed; having something like this tied to your GPS would be a great service. It would also be useful to quickly know the time the spot becomes illegal again. I can imagine, too, this would be incredibly useful if self-driving cars ever become a reality (or in helping them become a reality). After one drops you off at the show downtown, it could then check for nearby parking. But maybe this is dreaming too far down the road...
- mechazoidal 15y ago
  If you could get people to write a bunch of temporal expressions(http://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/timeNarrative.html http://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/timeNarrative.html) for the most standard parking signs, you could then start working something out. Right now you can figure out that sign's schedule with Runt, but it's a bit ugly: https://gist.github.com/1199082 https://gist.github.com/1199082
dadro 15y ago
I've wanted to do something similar except with Real Estate transaction data in the state of MA. Most residential real estate transaction data is available via each counties registry of deeds website (http://www.masslandrecords.com/malr/controller http://www.masslandrecords.com/malr/controller). The challenge is much of this data is stored using proprietary systems with limited (or no) APIs and different counties use different systems. Much like with Real Estate data, the biggest hurdle with this initiative is there is no standardized convention from one city to another. With data being all over the place it makes developing a community driven data gathering platform "wicked hard". What I think would be a good starting point is define some standards so that when the ad-hoc data is transformed it follows an agreed upon convention. This approach would allow for a centralized data sharing platform to be developed making data available via all kinds of different formats(RDF,JSON, etc). tl;dr: Awesome idea but comes with some difficult challenges.
blahedo 15y ago
The original post this refers to is at http://www.mattmacdonald.com/2011/08/20/api-access-questions-for-tyler-technologies-creator-of-munis/ http://www.mattmacdonald.com/2011/08/20/api-access-questions... where Matt, the Watertown resident, wrote to TylerTech. Apparently they responded with a letter I'll paraphrase as "no."
- thomaslangston 15y ago
  The answer was not "no", it was "We won't discuss the private details of a client's (the municipal government) system, please contact the client directly." Original Text "We value our relationship with our clients and are committed to protecting their privacy and security protocols. I have shared your request with the town and would direct you to the Town of Watertown for information regarding your request."
  - delinka 15y ago
    And this is a proper response from the vendor. The vendor should not attempt to get involved with political decisions about what should be available and what should not be available. They honor their contract, they stay out of trouble. If the town officially holds the position that the information is "non-public" or "secret," then you go to the courts, not to the vendor. Now, if the town agrees and goes to the vendor and the vendor says "no" or "that'll be a 10x increase in fees," it becomes the town's responsibility to find a compliant vendor.
brianshumate 15y ago
Shout out to PDX API by Max Ogden: http://pdxapi.com/ http://pdxapi.com/
bokchoi 15y ago
Check out data.gov.uk. They have APIs for lots of data for almost everything including legislation, schools and roads. http://data.gov.uk/linked-data Here is a road: http://transport.data.gov.uk/doc/road/A454 Jenni Tennison writes on her blog about the use of RDFa, Microdata, URLs, versioning of URLs and other interesting topics: http://www.jenitennison.com/blog/node/140 http://www.jenitennison.com/blog/node/141
Mizza 15y ago
Matt has a website where he posts all of his awesome projects and dealings in his efforts to open up Watertown: http://www.mattmacdonald.com/ http://www.mattmacdonald.com/
joshklein 15y ago
Fred Wilson @ Union Square Ventures is a proponent of NYC Big Apps. I believe he's on the judging panel? Here is where ideas are submitted: http://nycbigapps.com/ http://nycbigapps.com/ Here are finished apps: http://www.nyc.gov/html/mome/digital/html/apps/apps.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/mome/digital/html/apps/apps.shtml
rnc000 15y ago
Lots of open datasets can be found at http://open.mflask.com/ http://open.mflask.com/
zachwill 15y ago
Max Ogden (a fellow at Code for America) has been working on a site to help turn Excel spreadsheets and CSV files into usable JSON APIs for developers. You should check out datacouch.com — might be of interest.
gtracy 15y ago
I did this, but for a specific city service in Madison, WI. I built an API for the Madison Metro bus service that provides a nice web service for developers, but does ugly screen scraping behind the scenes. http://www.smsmybus.com/api/ http://www.smsmybus.com/api/

87 points by apievangelist 15y ago

majmun 15y ago

there should be API but for programming the city. and regulations written in programming language.

chsonnu 15y ago

Maybe Watertown is different but every local government I've had to deal with is crawling with luddites.

pavel_lishin 15y ago
The worst part of that isn't that they don't know how to set up their own technology - it's that they get sold on whatever snake oil salesman takes them out to the most dinners, and overpromises the most while keeping it plausible.
untog 15y ago
It's a slow process, for sure. It's difficult to even explain the utility of an API to the non tech-savvy until you show them an app that uses the data. I live in NYC and they're doing a great job- but change isn't immediate. I'm really interested in the area of governmental data- I feel like there's a need/use for an open wiki style directory of info, but http://opengovernmentdata.org/ http://opengovernmentdata.org/ is already a good resource.
- ddw 15y ago
  I agree that it's a slow process, but it's happening. At the city level, it's good to have someone within the Mayor's office or City Council that really cares about it. It's starting to happen here in Philly with http://www.opendataphilly.org http://www.opendataphilly.org

byoung2 15y ago

For the city of Los Angeles, I would love an API that takes a street address and an array of options and returns the street parking restrictions that apply. There are lots of places with confusing signage (e.g. http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/images/joeyredmond/typicalparkinginlosangeles.jpg http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/images/joeyredmond/typicalpar...), and it would be nice to get a boolean response to the question "Can I park here now?"

jtchang 15y ago
My god I would love that. Can it have a guarantee that you won't get a parking ticket? Just kidding. That said with a tool like that wouldn't the # of parking tickets issue by any city go down and thus they would have an incentive not to allow such a tool to be widely deployed? I swear that parking signs are deliberately put up to confuse people so they can get more revenue!
- byoung2 15y ago
  Well, according to their mission statement, their goal is not to generate revenue, but "to ensure transportation routes in Los Angeles flow safely and are not blocked" (http://ladot.lacity.org/tf_Parking_Enforcement.htm http://ladot.lacity.org/tf_Parking_Enforcement.htm) Of course we know the real reason is $$$. But if we take them at their word, providing access to this data would help them achieve their goal by helping motorists park properly and legally.
soldarnal 15y ago
Agreed; having something like this tied to your GPS would be a great service. It would also be useful to quickly know the time the spot becomes illegal again. I can imagine, too, this would be incredibly useful if self-driving cars ever become a reality (or in helping them become a reality). After one drops you off at the show downtown, it could then check for nearby parking. But maybe this is dreaming too far down the road...
mechazoidal 15y ago
If you could get people to write a bunch of temporal expressions(http://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/timeNarrative.html http://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/timeNarrative.html) for the most standard parking signs, you could then start working something out. Right now you can figure out that sign's schedule with Runt, but it's a bit ugly: https://gist.github.com/1199082 https://gist.github.com/1199082

dadro 15y ago

I've wanted to do something similar except with Real Estate transaction data in the state of MA. Most residential real estate transaction data is available via each counties registry of deeds website (http://www.masslandrecords.com/malr/controller http://www.masslandrecords.com/malr/controller). The challenge is much of this data is stored using proprietary systems with limited (or no) APIs and different counties use different systems. Much like with Real Estate data, the biggest hurdle with this initiative is there is no standardized convention from one city to another. With data being all over the place it makes developing a community driven data gathering platform "wicked hard". What I think would be a good starting point is define some standards so that when the ad-hoc data is transformed it follows an agreed upon convention. This approach would allow for a centralized data sharing platform to be developed making data available via all kinds of different formats(RDF,JSON, etc). tl;dr: Awesome idea but comes with some difficult challenges.

blahedo 15y ago

The original post this refers to is at http://www.mattmacdonald.com/2011/08/20/api-access-questions-for-tyler-technologies-creator-of-munis/ http://www.mattmacdonald.com/2011/08/20/api-access-questions... where Matt, the Watertown resident, wrote to TylerTech. Apparently they responded with a letter I'll paraphrase as "no."

thomaslangston 15y ago
The answer was not "no", it was "We won't discuss the private details of a client's (the municipal government) system, please contact the client directly." Original Text "We value our relationship with our clients and are committed to protecting their privacy and security protocols. I have shared your request with the town and would direct you to the Town of Watertown for information regarding your request."
- delinka 15y ago
  And this is a proper response from the vendor. The vendor should not attempt to get involved with political decisions about what should be available and what should not be available. They honor their contract, they stay out of trouble. If the town officially holds the position that the information is "non-public" or "secret," then you go to the courts, not to the vendor. Now, if the town agrees and goes to the vendor and the vendor says "no" or "that'll be a 10x increase in fees," it becomes the town's responsibility to find a compliant vendor.

brianshumate 15y ago

Shout out to PDX API by Max Ogden: http://pdxapi.com/ http://pdxapi.com/

bokchoi 15y ago

Check out data.gov.uk. They have APIs for lots of data for almost everything including legislation, schools and roads. http://data.gov.uk/linked-data Here is a road: http://transport.data.gov.uk/doc/road/A454 Jenni Tennison writes on her blog about the use of RDFa, Microdata, URLs, versioning of URLs and other interesting topics: http://www.jenitennison.com/blog/node/140 http://www.jenitennison.com/blog/node/141

Mizza 15y ago

Matt has a website where he posts all of his awesome projects and dealings in his efforts to open up Watertown: http://www.mattmacdonald.com/ http://www.mattmacdonald.com/

joshklein 15y ago

Fred Wilson @ Union Square Ventures is a proponent of NYC Big Apps. I believe he's on the judging panel? Here is where ideas are submitted: http://nycbigapps.com/ http://nycbigapps.com/ Here are finished apps: http://www.nyc.gov/html/mome/digital/html/apps/apps.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/mome/digital/html/apps/apps.shtml

rnc000 15y ago

Lots of open datasets can be found at http://open.mflask.com/ http://open.mflask.com/

zachwill 15y ago

Max Ogden (a fellow at Code for America) has been working on a site to help turn Excel spreadsheets and CSV files into usable JSON APIs for developers. You should check out datacouch.com — might be of interest.

gtracy 15y ago

I did this, but for a specific city service in Madison, WI. I built an API for the Madison Metro bus service that provides a nice web service for developers, but does ugly screen scraping behind the scenes. http://www.smsmybus.com/api/ http://www.smsmybus.com/api/