Most people think of summer as a time to kick-back, relax, and head to the beach. Well, that’s true for the most part, but for some parts of the country, summer also signifies the start of unpredictable weather.
After receiving complaints from local businesses and residents, the City of Beaverton, Oregon, implemented a ban against car camping on its city streets in the summer of 2018. The ban attracted a great deal of
Proactive governance requires an invested interest and effort by City Hall to engage with residents and embrace resident feedback. This means taking feedback into account for city policies, priorities, initiatives, and other needs that may arise for the community. An open line of communication – and responsiveness to it – in turn, creates public trust and improves the services that a city provides. That being said, effective proactive governance is a delicate balancing act. How do civic leaders know if they are doing it right, especially when communication has shifted to the digital format?
The origins of the US Conference of Mayors lie in the streets of Detroit during the Great Depression. Detroit, just like the rest of the country, was suffering from high unemployment rates and starving citizens that the City couldn’t handle on its own. The Mayor of Detroit, Frank Murphy, asked for help from the federal government and President Hoover, but to no avail. He took a proactive approach and instead decided to search for solutions from those who understood what he was going through best: other mayors.
Ah, summer. It’s that time of the year where any thoughts of sweaters are pushed aside, while sunshine, trips to the beach, BBQs, and 4th of July fireworks take center stage. It’s also that time of year when local governments across the country are hard at work putting on fabulous events. Lot’s of them. Whether it’s live concerts or artisan fairs, a large number of people will be heading out to experience summer festivals and the like, including city and county sponsored affairs.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is just one game-changing technology that counties can and should be leveraging. There’s incredible potential for counties, in particular, to reap the benefits of AI to help them operate more efficiently and be more effective and inclusive in the services they provide.
Filing cabinets, clunky phones, computers still running on a dial-up connection, and other relics from the end of the 20th century are some of the things that people might imagine still exist in local government organizations. And in part, there is some truth to these stereotypes. But things are changing. Cities have recognized the need to shift to be more technology savvy organizations and to become “smarter,” but that requires someone with the digital expertise to help connect cities with the right tools and resources. That’s where the CIO comes into the picture.
In February of 2019, Aurora, Illinois, unfortunately, joined the ever-growing list of cities that have experienced a mass shooting within the United States. The outcome of the tragedy resulted in five deaths, as well as six injured, including five police officers. The incident almost immediately went viral on social media and was soon picked up by the national media as well.
Searching for information has become intuitive, easy, and mundane. All you have to do is open your preferred search engine, type in what you’re looking for, and hit enter. That’s it. What might have taken people hours, days, or even weeks in decades past can easily be achieved within seconds in the palm of your hand with your mobile phone.
Exactly one year ago, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced his vision to not just become a smart city, but to become the smart city. “We must leap, not stroll into the future. We must sprint, not jog. It will be this city that will be the Smart City of the world,” he said.
E-Scooters have taken over the streets in cities across the world and the US has been the epicenter of the e-scooter phenomenon where companies like Bird and Lime took disruptive measures to introduce their new services to the market.
City-sponsored ballot measures and general obligation bonds are usually high stakes and often involve significant funding requests that can also influence the budget capacity of basic services within local government. With the use of technology,
The budget. It’s a pain point for most cities, especially since it usually entails budget cuts for particular departments, projects, and/or individuals, rather than budget surpluses. For cities, budgets are a complex beast. Ultimately, cities are left with the annual challenge of how to spend limited resources in the most efficient and effective way possible, and this is no easy feat. Especially because cities, in particular, are renowned for being under-funded and under staffed. The good news is that with technology today, the right tools can compensate both for budget and for staffing.
Cities are made by people and run by people. And because of that, not everything will run smoothly or according to plan. Often, it seems that the negative feedback from one standout incident or against