We built MyPB.community for Participatory Budget Project to display six years of NYC participatory budgeting proposals. Users can search by address, apply multiple filters, and view all data on maps, in charts, and export to CSV and PDF. The app won two awards from the Mayor’s Office: the Mayor’s Civics Award for the project that […]
Category Archives: Open Government
Building MyGov.NYC
myGov.nyc integrates public datasets and information resources together into a single data-driven website that gives New Yorkers a more complete understanding of how New York City’s agencies turn resources into actions that benefit New Yorkers. Its innovative backend allows users to connect data together even if it comes from different APIs and in different formats.
Upgrading BetaNYC’s Website
BetaNYC had a solid WordPress website with a few bugs and a few features that weren’t fully implemented. We worked with their team to understand the vision for the website, found the perfect theme for them and then built a child theme on top of it, enabling us to them customize the looks, feel and […]
MyGov.nyc Offers New Yorkers a More Transparent City, with a Page for Every Capital Project
Few things impact the lives of New Yorkers more than the city’s “capital projects.” These projects create, maintain, and improve the infrastructure New Yorkers use every day, including: streets, bridges, tunnels, sewers, parks, and so much more. In 2018, the capital budget will be $16.2 billion, approximately 17% the size of the city’s $85.2 billion […]
SimCity Showed Us Brilliant Civic Technology Interfaces 30 Years Ago. Let’s Build Them.
I was eight years old when I first encountered a computer game called “SimCity.” The general premise of the game was that you were the mayor of a virtual city, and you would use game money to create a place for communities of “Sims” to live. First you set up basic infrastructure like roads, pipes, […]
What is “Municipalism”?
The definition of “municipalism” is still up for grabs. If you Google the word you’ll be given a snippet from Wikipedia about “libertarian municipalism”, a compelling but very specific utopian political philosophy of Murray Bookchin. Surely “municipalism” can and should mean something more. Over the last fifty years, the percentage of people around the globe living in urban areas has increased from 30% to […]
Cryptocurrency Can Shift the Balance of Power Between Cities, States and Nations
One of the most powerful tools of a modern nation is its central bank’s ability to create money “out of thin air.” Nations can use this new money to purchase their own nation’s debt in the form of treasury bills, bonds and notes, allowing it to spend more than it earns in taxes and other income. If a […]