STEPHEN GOLDSMITH, the Daniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Government and former mayor of Indianapolis, is focusing much of his current work on data and cities. Last year he launched at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. He is co-author of the soon-to-be-released book titled "The Responsive City."
Q: How does data have the potential to transform cities in the future?
Increasingly, people are living in cities – there is much more congestion, a lot more people, but at the same time there is a lot more data being generated. There are sensors, there are cell phones, there are all kinds of information being generated. And so if you think about government needing to individualize its responses to problems and people, it is now very possible because there are huge amounts of data that can be relatively easily mined and analyzed, while also paying close attention to privacy issues. The information can be used by local government leaders to think through how to better maintain their cities and help city residents. So, as we think about the tension between an overabundance of municipal challenges and too much data, if you bring those together you can dramatically improve the quality of city services.
Q: Which cities have been the leaders in harnessing data to improve public services?
There is a wide range of ways you can use data. We have featured a good amount of time in our writing, in the book I recently did, and on our website to the Boston experience, asking how do citizens engage their community, how do they use their iPhone, Android, to report a problem? How do they get back a response? But that’s just really the start. New York City determines which building’s going to burn down next, not which building has burned down, but which one’s going to burn down next. Police departments around the country are dramatically changing the way they police, based on data. But, Indiana’s using a case that says, we have a lot of kids that are in trouble, we have a high infant mortality rate, how can we bring down the infant mortality by looking at lots of data – medical data, school data, family data, all with attention to privacy – and then figuring out what interventions work in what sort of situations. So, there are massive amounts of data that we see being used around the country and around the world to change the way social services, the hard services, are being delivered.
Q: Are there cities outside of the U.S. that are also serving as leaders in this space?
The space is developing in all sorts of places. In Europe, Barcelona and other cities in Spain have been leaders. Of course, Singapore is a leader. In South America, we see work in Brazil, San Paolo and Rio, as well. There are a couple of projects in Buenos Aires, Argentina. There are activities going on around the globe.
What’s interesting about the movement is that it sometimes begins in the private or non-profit sector and sometimes it begins in the government sector. Sometimes the government leads by saying “we’re going to take all this data and put it together, and figure out how to