The third annual International Open Data Hackathon is this Saturday, and it’s an exciting opportunity to explore what’s possible with... View Article
Continue readingOpenGov Champions: Shea Frederick, Baltimore, MD
Meet Shea Frederick, our latest OpenGov Champion. Last September, Sunlight’s video team — myself and Associate Video Producer Solay Howell... View Article
Continue readingTwo principles to avoid common data mistakes
If David Brooks is correct, the “rising philosophy of the day” is “data-ism.” But you don’t have to believe David Brooks. Just look at the big data (e.g. Google Trends) on “big data.” For the political junkies, data became sexy in 2012. First, the New York Times’ Nate Silver’s meta-analyses of polling data triumphed over the pundits’ “gut feelings.” Second, the Obama campaign successfully used data analytics to increase voter turnout. This caused people to pay attention (witness, for example, David Brooks’ new devotion to the subject as prime column-fodder). Of course, for those of us in the transparency and accountability advocacy community, data has long been a prized commodity. And as governments around the world increasingly commit to open data promises, more and more data is becoming available. At its best, data allows us to transcend our personal anecdotal experiences, giving us the big picture. It allows us to detect relationships and patterns that we wouldn’t otherwise see. Using data smartly can help us to make better decisions about both our own lives and our society. But it’s important to understand that data and data analysis are merely tools. They can be used well, or they can be used poorly. It is remarkably easy both to mislead and to be misled by data. Hence the old adage: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” For many people, data can quickly overwhelm and confuse. It’s easy to misinterpret data, or to use it irresponsibly. We as humans are not particularly good at intuitively grasping large numbers, and our educational system generally does a poor job of helping us to counter this problem. For that reason, I want to offer two basic principles that I think could prevent a majority of the data mistakes that I observe:
- Cherry-picking works better with fruit than data
- Correlation provokes questions better than it answers them
It’s Complicated: State and Local Government Relationships
Crafting useful transparency recommendations for local government requires taking the time to understand the complexities of policy-making at this level. To engage thoughtfully in this, we have to better understand the relationships between municipalities and states. Understanding how governments function and interact with each other is essential to understanding where and how transparency reforms will make a difference. When we look at local governments, we have to consider not only how that government is structured, but also how it operates in relation to the state structures that surround it. We use cities as an example in this post for the sake of consistency and clarity, but these different relationships can apply across the spectrum of municipal governments and municipal government structures. There are two basic types of interaction between cities and states:
- A general law city has a structure largely shaped by a state's law or constitution. The municipality can adopt local ordinances setting rules for its residents, but only within the range allowed by state law. This format can also be shaped by Dillon's Rule, which essentially means that local governments only have the powers granted to them by the state. There is debate about the challenges and benefits of this system. Some local governments feel the rule restricts them when they try to deal with evolving issues such as a growing population with changing needs. A general law city would have to seek power from the state to deal with new problems if that authority hasn't already been explicitly granted, and that's where this system can be seen as a constraint.
- A charter city or home rule city functions more autonomously from state laws and regulations. These cities have a charter establishing how government will be structured, what its duties are, and what local ordinances will be. The process for creating a charter or revising an existing charter varies from state to state. Any municipality with a charter is still subject to state laws, however. It might have more authority to deal with local issues, but any laws it sets are subject to the state law and constitution. Even in the places that have home rule, they might sometimes feel more like a general law city if the state is aggressive with the amount of legislation it passes impacting local policies and authority.
The Long Tail of Small American Cities is Really, Really Long
As we started thinking about how to approach cities across the US, we had to think about where to focus... View Article
Continue readingLearning why transparency matters: a new Sunlight Foundation research project
We have so far been fortunate that most people intuitively grasp the value of technology-driven openness and transparency, and as a result, an impressive range of NGOs and governments around the world are building on the basic understanding that “Sunlight is the best disinfectant” (Justice Brandeis’ aphorism that gave the Sunlight Foundation its name). For example, as of this writing, 58 countries have signed onto the Open Government Partnership. But the quick-to-grasp nature of transparency’s potential has its dangers: 1) that we cease asking questions about it because it has become an article of faith; and 2) that, as strong advocates for the cause, we begin to oversell its potential (and thus undermine its genuine contributions). This year, we are kicking off an attempt to both clarify and test our understandings of what transparency can do. Thanks to support from Google.org, we at Sunlight are embarking on a research project to evaluate the impacts of technology-driven transparency policies around the world. We plan to conduct a series of case studies.
Continue readingInside City Hall
We’ve already looked at a few technical definitions of municipal government in the United States, but what about the differences in how local governments are run? It turns out there's a great degree of variability in political structure, and understanding this diversity is an important factor in understanding how policy is made and how the public interacts with and accesses government information.
Here are a few of the most common structures for municipal governments:
- A mayor-council system has a mayor serving in the executive position and a council as its legislative branch. The mayor might be chosen by council members or elected by residents. Council members are chosen in a separate election from the mayor and can represent different districts in a city or a city at large. There is plenty of variance in the relationships between mayors and councils. In a strong mayor system, the mayor can appoint department or agency heads with approval from the council and has veto power for legislation the council passes. In a weak mayor system, the mayor lacks these powers and the council holds most of the policy power.
OpenGov Voices: Being average is your superpower
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog. 
Sandra Moscoso runs the World Bank Finances Program (https://finances.worldbank.org) by day and works on community efforts around education, active transportation, and open government by night. Sandra lives in small, quaint, Washington, DC, where she tries to get a little biking in with her husband and two children. Follow: @sandramoscoso
Last week, on my way home from work, I met a young man raising funds for a charity. He stood outside of a subway station and as part of his pitch, he asked, "if you could have any superpower, what would it be?" I offered the same answer I have been giving my children for years. "I have a superpower. It's reading." I suspect this both annoys and inspires my children. Given that annoying and inspiring are among my favorite parental duties, I rather like this answer.
Since then, a few things have happened that are making me want to revise my response to that young man.
The Sunlight Foundation recently announced its "new major focus" of "local government transparency," and this has me doing a lot of thinking about the work I do within my community and city I live in.
I have come to realize something exciting. It turns out I have another superpower - I'm average.
How MuniLand Sees Cities
As part of our municipal work here at Sunlight, we're inviting various people to share their take on what makes a city and why transparency at this level is important. Today's post is from Cate Long, a guest contributor to Reuters.com on the municipal bond market. By Cate Long Alisha Green of Sunlight Foundation is working on a project to identify the ways that different types of data are used to describe cities. She put up a great post that sketches out a number of ways to view a city demographically, including population density, unemployment and housing. She asked me recently to write about how I personally view cities. I think of cities almost entirely as cash flow machines that collect taxes and provide social services. That is muniland. Here are Alisha’s questions and my answers: 1. From your point of view, what is a city? Cities are legal entities that are incorporated to provide essential services; especially police, fire, education and water and sewer systems. Depending on the state, cities have legal authority to enter contracts, collect specific types of taxes and maintain judicial systems. Many cities also provide more expansive social services including care of the elderly and disabled and maintenance of parks and hospitals.
Continue reading18 New Ways of Visualizing A City
The way we visualize and compare cities says much about our understanding of how they work. As part of our ongoing exploration of what makes a city, we wanted to survey how people are using data to describe the political, geographical and social realities cities face. Below, we've compiled some unique visualizations. Some of these center around cities in the common sense of the word, focusing on large urban areas, but we think these images as a group help expand the understanding of the diversity of all kinds of municipalities. We aren't demographers, but we aren't working in a vacuum, either. As we continue to engage in open data work, we hope to contribute to the kind of information that powers these visuals and help create the resources for the next wave of municipal understanding.
POPULATION DENSITY
1. This 2010 U.S. Census map, from a report about population change, shows population-weighted density by metropolitan statistical area. That's a complicated way of essentially saying the map shows how tightly packed people are on average in metropolitan areas, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. The map shows how people generally are more condensed in metropolitan areas along the East and West coasts than they are in metropolitan areas in the middle of the country.
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