Pittsburgh's Data Day: Using Civic Data to Spark Hands-on Community Engagement
Even if you have a wealth of public data, it can be a struggle to engage diverse stakeholders who could use that information to improve their community. Pittsburgh's Data Days are designed to tackle that challenge.
The public data landscape in Pittsburgh has quickly transformed over the past three years, from a place with little publicly-accessible community information to an environment where a considerable amount of data is available. Our challenge now lies in helping individuals build their capacity to interpret and apply public information to better understand what is happening in their community. We want residents to work with community organizations and local government to take informed action to improve their neighborhoods.
We think people in other cities can learn from and help inform our efforts to broaden and accelerate our community’s capacity to use civic data.
Liz Monk, Project Manager of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Community Profiles project, also contributed to this post. This post was adapted from a summary originally published in the December 2016 Pittsburgh Economic Quarterly.
Pittsburgh is a participating city in the Civic Tech and Data Collaborative, which harnesses the power of technology and data to make local governments and civic organizations more effective in meeting the pressing challenges of the 21st century. Led by three national organizations – Code for America, Living Cities, and the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership – the Collaborative is a two-year project that provides grants and technical assistance to seven urban communities around the country to improve civic tech and data ecosystems. Funding for this collaborative was made possible with support and partnership from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. This blog was posted on the Living Cities project page.