It’s the beginning of 2012 and statistics/data science has never been hotter. Some of the most important data is data collected about civic organizations. If you haven’t seen Bill Gate’s TED Talk about the importance of state budgets, you should watch it now. A major key to solving a lot of our economic problems lies in understanding and using data collected about cites and states.
U.S. cities and states are jumping on this idea and our own Baltimore was one of the earliest adopters. I thought I’d make a list of all the cities that have made an effort to make civic data public. Here are a few I’ve found:
There are also open data sites for many states:
Civic organizations are realizing that opening their data through APIs or by hosting competitions can lead to greater transparency, good advertising, and new and useful applications. If I had one data-related wish for 2012, it would be that the critical mass of data/statistics knowledge being developed could be used with these data to help solve some of our most pressing problems.
Update: Oh Canada! In the comments Ani Ruhil points to some Canadian cities/provinces with open data pages.