3 ms·

City of Philadelphia: Open Data Census

38 points by ca98am79 12y ago

hackuser 12y ago
How many cities are doing something like this, and have this much data available? Is it the norm?
- jarvuschris 12y ago
  Code for America maintains a map of their open-data volunteer groups (called brigades): http://www.codeforamerica.org/brigade/ http://www.codeforamerica.org/brigade/ Open Knowledge Foundation has a census tool that links out to lots of open data, their data isn't comprehensive though as it relies on crowd-sourced reporting and has specific slots they're looking for: http://us-city.census.okfn.org/ http://us-city.census.okfn.org/
dmschulman 12y ago
Philly has some great digital data initiatives. I don't know if this is the norm for most cities that aren't the size of San Francisco or NYC (or have budgets that these cities have) but the City of Philadelphia has pursued excellent open data policies which have led to projects like: https://www.opendataphilly.org/ https://www.opendataphilly.org/ http://www.phlcrimemapper.com/ http://www.phlcrimemapper.com/ The city also has an interesting github page: https://github.com/CityOfPhiladelphia https://github.com/CityOfPhiladelphia I know I'm missing a couple of other great pages. AXISPhilly used to be my go-to place for open data projects here but they closed up shop in 2013.
- jarvuschris 12y ago
  Philly is the 5th largest city in the country, nearly 2x the population of SF... JUST SAYIN :)
  - dmschulman 12y ago
    Yeah very true! Budget would dictate city resources more than population anyway (though budgets would also scale with population density (bigger tax base) and greater need for city resources in a perfect world). I might have overstated that case a bit in my previous comment. To note, however: I did some very preliminary research on city budgets for Philly and SF. I'm still scrolling through PDFs from the SF Comptroller's office, but phila.gov gives me this handy visual breakdown: http://www.phila.gov/openbudget/ http://www.phila.gov/openbudget/
jasonlotito 12y ago
Should probably stress that they aren't just releasing the data, but they've been fairly active in reaching out to the tech community and encouraging them to use it.

38 points by ca98am79 12y ago

hackuser 12y ago

How many cities are doing something like this, and have this much data available? Is it the norm?

jarvuschris 12y ago
Code for America maintains a map of their open-data volunteer groups (called brigades): http://www.codeforamerica.org/brigade/ http://www.codeforamerica.org/brigade/ Open Knowledge Foundation has a census tool that links out to lots of open data, their data isn't comprehensive though as it relies on crowd-sourced reporting and has specific slots they're looking for: http://us-city.census.okfn.org/ http://us-city.census.okfn.org/

dmschulman 12y ago

Philly has some great digital data initiatives. I don't know if this is the norm for most cities that aren't the size of San Francisco or NYC (or have budgets that these cities have) but the City of Philadelphia has pursued excellent open data policies which have led to projects like: https://www.opendataphilly.org/ https://www.opendataphilly.org/ http://www.phlcrimemapper.com/ http://www.phlcrimemapper.com/ The city also has an interesting github page: https://github.com/CityOfPhiladelphia https://github.com/CityOfPhiladelphia I know I'm missing a couple of other great pages. AXISPhilly used to be my go-to place for open data projects here but they closed up shop in 2013.

jarvuschris 12y ago
Philly is the 5th largest city in the country, nearly 2x the population of SF... JUST SAYIN :)
- dmschulman 12y ago
  Yeah very true! Budget would dictate city resources more than population anyway (though budgets would also scale with population density (bigger tax base) and greater need for city resources in a perfect world). I might have overstated that case a bit in my previous comment. To note, however: I did some very preliminary research on city budgets for Philly and SF. I'm still scrolling through PDFs from the SF Comptroller's office, but phila.gov gives me this handy visual breakdown: http://www.phila.gov/openbudget/ http://www.phila.gov/openbudget/

jasonlotito 12y ago

Should probably stress that they aren't just releasing the data, but they've been fairly active in reaching out to the tech community and encouraging them to use it.