Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

The Rise of Civic Tech

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by

James A. Bacon
in , , , ,

Call it digital cities, call it civic tech, call it what you will — information technology is transforming the way local governments deliver services. This brief video by Ben Hecht, CEO of Living Cities, gives a flavor.

My favorite example he cites: The Boston Bump. Instead of dispatching engineers around the city to survey the condition of roads, the city of Boston has created an app that allows citizens to put on their car dashboards to record bumps in the road and their locations. Compiling the data from thousands of these apps allows the city to map road conditions in real time.

With the wealth of IT experience in Northern Virginia, the Old Dominion could be a leader in this field. Why aren’t we? Why are most of the innovations occurring elsewhere?

— JAB

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7 responses to “The Rise of Civic Tech”

  1. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    “Why are most of the innovations occurring elsewhere?”.

    Virginia doesn’t have any cities. None like Boston or Chicago at least. The biggest Virginia city is Virginia Beach at about 470,000 people. Then Norfolk at 240,000 – Chesapeake at 222,000 – Richmond at 204,000.

    Boston is 625,000. Boston is also part of Suffolk County with a population of 772,000.

    Chicago is 2.7M.

    Virginia has always been run by a ruling oligarchy. One trick is to keep the local entities too small to have any autonomy. Hence Virginia is the only state in the US where cities are not in counties. Beyond that, Virginia has far more counties than its geographic size or population justify.

    Fairfax County has sufficient size to work like a city but, then again, it has no charter and is managed by the Imperial Clown Show in Richmond.

    Why are the innovations occurring elsewhere?

    Because the governance system in Virginia is designed to retard forward progress in the furtherance of the goals of the oligarchy.

    1. reed fawell III Avatar
      reed fawell III

      Don says”Fairfax County has sufficient size to work like a city but, then again, it has no charter and is managed by the Imperial Clown Show in Richmond.”

      Wow? Incredible insight. That’s the problem. But how did Arlington avoid it?

      1. DJRippert Avatar
        DJRippert

        Arlington didn’t really avoid being run by Richmond. The only real case of autonomy is the fact that Arlington has responsibility for its local roads. Yet even that was another “Richmond special”. Virginia’s Constitution says that the General Assembly cannot make laws that are specific to any given jurisdiction. The framers of the so-called 1971 jurisdiction apparently did not want The Imperial Clown Show in Richmond engaged in local legislation. However, nothing is foolproof because fools are so ingenious. The clowns simply passed a law pertaining to any Virginia county less than 100 sq mi. Only Arlington qualifies.

        The examples in Bacon’s video are noteworthy to me because they involve jurisdictions being innovative, not states being innovative. For that to happen the jurisdiction has to have enough autonomy to make substantial decisions. Arlington could have implemented the equivalent of the Boston Bump. However, at 200,000 people Arlington isn’t nearly the size of Boston or Chicago. Fairfax County is big enough but doesn’t manage its its own roads.

  2. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Yipes! Big Bacon is watching you!

  3. reed fawell III Avatar
    reed fawell III

    So how does Fairfax manage to agree to spend $90,000,000 on expansion of Thomas Jefferson High School, according to today Washington Examiner?

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      Localities are sort of, kind of responsible for education. Which is why the Clown Show in Richmond has been unable to prevent Northern Virginia from having the best public high school in America – Thomas Jefferson. Have no fear – if the clown show were fully in charge there would be no Jefferson.

      1. reed fawell III Avatar
        reed fawell III

        Got it.

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