State & Local

Paving a Path from Open Data to Open Government in South Bend

Data-Smart City Solutions: Since launching its open data portal in August 2013, South Bend, IN has published datasets on topics ranging from finance to code enforcement. Like many cities, South Bend was eager to share data for the purposes of transparency as well as the anticipated social and economic gains. In 2013, McKinsey projected that open data had the potential to generate over $13 billion in economic benefits across seven sectors, and the heart of open data is driving debate, advocacy and accountability. Cities may be better positioned to reap these rewards than state and federal agencies – local governments provide data on services that offer clear opportunities for feedback, since they are of direct interest to our residents and their daily lives.

However, our relatively passive approach of publishing data has shifted the responsibility too far onto the public, which provides us with a limited audience for open data and an underwhelming impact. At its heart, this is a question of inclusion and interest. Many cities have tried to bridge the divide between access and impact by collaborating with groups like Code for America on data analysis and app development, which is an important step forward. But the truth is, not every resident will learn to code, and this approach has unnecessarily left many voices on the fringes. The Sunlight Foundation admits that the movement from access to "substantive collaboration" has been slow, with much more work to date on the technical and legal aspects of policy and program design than on resident engagement.

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