San Diego has won admiration from Techwire's sister publication Governing and philanthropic group Living Cities for its work in data-based decisions.
The San Diego City Council created an open data policy in 2014 that spurred on an open data portal and became the basis for "a general culture change," Deputy Chief of Staff for Innovation and Policy Almis Udrys told Techwire in an interview. The city now chooses how it spends funds and dedicates resources off this information.
"The reasons were pretty much what everybody says are the reasons when they adopt these policies. One is transparency; the data belongs to the people ... so we should provide it to them, for the possibility of the public being able to identify blind spots. But also for our employees to be more efficient ... so it's on their own hard drive. And generally as a good government measure," Udrys said.
The data in the portal has allowed employees and residents to enable innovation. The city has pushed to build employee teams to find out what makes their jobs better and foster ideas to create savings in business processes.
"One of Mayor (Kevin) Faulconer's big visions is creating a city government that's as innovative as the people we serve, because we have the high-tech, bio-tech, cyber-tech, smart research institutions and communities around us," Udrys said.
The data portal has enabled the build out of a Get It Done app, where residents can request city services, and StreetsSD, a look at the quality of street surfaces around them. The apps also collect data, allowing the city to move funds and resources to areas with the greatest need.
While the portal was originally built out under a contract, the city took it in-house when "we hired some people that knew how to program and build tools," Udrys said. The portal's building blocks can be seen here, and data updates have become automated.
The city has contracted with Deloitte to integrate systems across its apps and has used hybrid competitions for some bids.
