City management

The next era of data-driven local government

Cities and other localities are entering a new phase with how they incorporate data into decision-making.

  • By Alisha Powell Gillis

Three steps to building digital resilience

Digital resilience is not just reaction and disaster response; it’s about thoughtful investing in enhanced capabilities that will deliver benefits in the future, one smart city expert says.

  • By Stephanie Kanowitz

Traffic jams are contagious. Understanding how they spread can help make them less common

A contagion model often used to predict the spread of illness can help traffic controllers respond in real time to traffic jams.

  • By Meead Saberi

Cities, legislatures learn to govern by conference call

Some of the most important legislation states and cities enact to fight the coronavirus pandemic will be passed on grainy video chats or glitchy conference calls, using processes that have never been tested.

  • By Alex Brown

NLC posts data on cities’ COVID-19 responses

The National League of Cities has posted a Google spreadsheet listing policies issued to fight the coronavirus.

  • By Susan Miller

Smart planning delivers powerful benefits for cities and citizens

Smart planning takes advantage of the best available data and technology to coordinate and optimize every area of responsibility a city touches.

  • By Bob Benstead

Pittsburgh on the road to ‘inclusive innovation’

Forty-three percent of the initiatives in the Pittsburgh Roadmap for Inclusive Innovation are underway.

  • By Derek Major

7 steps to securing open government

A case study of open data processes in Seattle yielded seven ways cities can better manage risk when opening their data.

  • By Amanda Ziadeh

8 cities win innovation support

Bloomberg Philanthropies selected eight cities for its What Works Cities initiative, a $42 million program to help 100 cities enhance their use of data to improve the lives of residents.

  • By Derek Major

The Turbo Tax approach to city budgeting

Hartford, Conn., used Engaged Public’s Balancing Act tool to visualize budget data and let citizens adjust numbers and priorities.

  • By Stephanie Kanowitz

How cities can incubate innovation

A recent report examines how new technologies, policies and approaches to governance are helping cities improve services.

  • By Kathleen Hickey

San Francisco focuses IoT platform on energy data streams

San Francisco is acting as anchor to a group of firms mapping real-time building energy usage data as well streaming information from traffic monitors and mobile devices.

  • By Patrick Marshall

IBM extends Smarter City Challenge

Building on four years of helping cities improve services, IBM's Smarter Cities Challenge invites local governments to apply for assistance from problem-solving teams.

  • By GCN Staff

Seattle police deploy SeaStat crime mapping tech

The Seattle Police Department is using its crime data as part of a new program that’s aimed at quickly addressing crime hotspots based on analysis of crime data and community reports of incidents.

  • By GCN Staff
Featured eBooks

Gartner: 10 trends for smart government

The market research firm identified 10 strategic technology trends and described how government IT managers can apply them to their innovation efforts.

  • By GCN Staff

Open data front and center in Chicago

Chicago recently released its first open data report, providing a progress report on current and new initiatives for 2014.

  • By Kathleen Hickey

Tech refresh: Cook County to track county vehicles, automate inspections

The Cook County Board approved technology upgrades to track the location of county vehicles and automate building inspections, in a move away from a paper-based system.

  • By GCN Staff

How MassHealth cut Medicaid fraud with predictive analytics

Predictive analytics system based on NetReveal fraud detection protects MassHealth from fraud and unnecessary expenditures.

  • By Rutrell Yasin

AT&T, IBM to help cities build out Internet of Things

AT&T, IBM join forces to help cities, utilities and commercial firms develop and capitalize on the Internet of intelligent devices.

  • By GCN Staff

NYC Geek Squad stays on mission to liberate data

Building on successes of 2013, the Mayor's Office of Data Analytics pushes predictive analytics to help city leaders make data-driven decisions.

  • By Rutrell Yasin

City mines eviction filings to slow homelessness

New York City's Department of Homeless Services is using analytics to anticipate evictions and help identify families at risk of becoming homeless.

  • By Kathleen Hickey