Business - Written by Dan Herman on Friday, July 18, 2008 13:58 - 5 Comments
3D Cities and Government 2.0
Courtesy my Facebook feed and District of Columbia CTO Vivek Kundra here’s a fantastic example of a government agency actively trying to stimulate new ideas and innovation. Yesterday Kundra’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) released data representing more than 84,000 3D buildings for inclusion in Google Earths’ Cities in 3D program.
The release is meant to allow citizens, whether development experts or simply concerned city dwellers, a greater role in conversations and plans about the city’s future. Want to propose a new development? These 3D images should go a long way in allowing all parties a better, and simpler, platform upon which to build.
Over at the Google Earth blog,
1. It is the right thing to do. Fundamentally, the District Government believes that data created with public funds should be available to the public.
2. Because every neighborhood can benefit from 3D. Economic development was a primary driver behind development of the dataset. The buildings provide the context in which to plan and debate proposed new developments.
3. We get better 3D performance from the cloud and we don’t pay for it. Frankly, the District did not have the technical capabilities for distributing nearly 100,000 3D building across the enterprise. With the data now hosted on Google Earth 4.3, we expect DC Government users to turn to Google Earth just like the public.
4. We want to communicate with our residents. It is important to us that citizens, particularly DC taxpayers, understand what we do.
This is great stuff. We’re looking closely at what Kundra and his colleagues in Mayor Adrian Fenty’s adminstration are up to in DC. Whether it’s the use of wiki’s to bring transparency and accountability into the procurement process or releasing upwards of 80% of the real-time statistical data they collect via RSS feeds to the public, the team at OCTO is redefining traditional notions of what is and isn’t shared with the public. And in doing so they’re acknowledging that the public may be a significant asset in helping build a stronger DC community. Now what remains to be seen is what the impact of this transparency will be and ultimately how will we measure the success of Government 2.0
5 Comments
Ben Letalik
[...] Herman on the Wikinomics blog points to recently released data of 84,000 3D buildings for inclusion in Google Earths’ [...]
Oh great! Now it is so much easier to plan terrorist attacks. al-Qa’ida thanks you. Back before 9/11 there was a move to put the architectural plans of public buildings on line so that students could learn from them. The terrorist use of such information was seen quickly. I guess someone forgot about this.
Fair enough, Dwayne. This begs a question – is anonymity dead in a Gov 2.0 world? i.e. does registration with some proof of identity mitigate those risks? And will people accept them in order to take advantage of the potential value offered by openness?
Dwayne is correct; the geographic data that the District of Columbia releases is potentially useful for terrorists and others with malicious intent. Simularly, airplanes and trucks can also be used as weapons, but as a society we have determined that their utility outweighs their risk so long as the government imposes some restrictions. Mapped data is part of the national information infrastructure just like roads and airports are part of the physical infrastructure; the same data that puts us at risk, has also helped Americans be more efficient in industry, better stewards of our environment, and more open in our government. In the District we try to follow some useful guidelines that have been published by the Federal Geographic Data Committee in determining what to publish and what not to withhold.
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Dan, this is some really cool stuff.
I’ll be interested to see how many citizen submissions this new transparency policy will bring. By publishing 80% of the data via RSS feeds, its possible that people will suffer from information overload. This is especially true if there is no “smart” information pushing the most important information to the forefront.
The other problem is publicizing the fact that this information is now available. If it does become popular, are there mechanisms in place to receive requests, and more importantly act on them.
Regardless, it is definitely a step in the right direction. I think Toronto, from a city planning perspective, could really use something like this.