“The practice of proactively making city data publicly available – in whole or in part – and legally open for use. The creation of sustainable open data systems can promote informed decision-making, transparency, and robust resident engagement.”
Cambridge, Massachusetts
2023 WWC Gold Certified City
Cities have come a long way with open data in recent years – it’s very common now for local governments to make at least some of their data public by publishing it online. Cambridge city leaders push the limits of this practice by going extra lengths to make that data easy to find and even delightful to use.
The approach is rooted in the Cambridge Open Data Ordinance. That law not only codifies the city’s commitment to data transparency, but also the rationale for doing so. “Making government data open in easy to find and usable formats,” the law says, “will create effective and meaningful opportunities for the City and members of the public to work collaboratively to generate new ideas to solve complex challenges.”
The ordinance requires a board composed of both residents and city employees to weigh privacy, security, or other concerns as new datasets are prepared to publish. The board meets quarterly at City Hall, and often brings in guest speakers from Cambridge’s famous universities and tech sector to keep city leaders up to speed on cutting-edge practice. (The meeting records are public, of course.)
Cambridge publishes and regularly updates more than 200 datasets on the city’s open data portal; more datasets are added every year, with a priority placed on data that has the highest value to city leaders and the public. The website is well organized and easy to navigate. If users don’t want to drill down into the full catalog of datasets, they can easily skim across data visualizations that tell stories about the city budget, development projects, and community engagement using city data.
Disaggregated data are highlighted where available. For example, a workforce dashboard breaks down the demographics of all city employees by race and gender and charts how the city is doing at tackling employment disparities. City leaders also have some fun with data on the portal: A “Dogs of Cambridge” data story uses animal licensing records to reveal the city’s most popular dog names (Charlie and Luna) and breeds (mixed breeds and labrador retrievers).
City leaders in Cambridge emphasize engaging the public around how they can use open data to understand challenges in the community and be part of the solution. Their Open Data User Guide offers a step-by-step guide for exploring and analyzing datasets. The city regularly hosts public workshops on open data, and publishes an open data newsletter to keep residents informed of new developments. And through a Civic Innovation Challenge, residents have a standing invitation to use their data skills to help city leaders solve real problems like reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Cambridge City Government Resources: