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open source in local government
Last week, Boston’s municipal government became the first of any major US city to open source it’s own website, Boston.gov. That is, all of the website’s code is available on Github for the public to see, manipulate, and even contribute to. The move is part of a broader effort to improve the efficiency and efficacy of the city’s government services by engaging local communities and experts. This, alongside Boston’s “open data portal” and the freshly implemented “CityScore” data analytics platform, signals the city’s commitment to building a strong and productive relationship with the Boston technology community. The government is betting that by allowing local developers, private companies, and institutions to participate in the constant refinement of its online public services, those services will ultimately be more attuned to the public need, and delivered in faster cycles.
The move represents an important step towards redefining how city governments interact with technology communities, and technologies themselves. This is a paradigm shift that aims for higher leverage government: the capacity to do less with more. It’s no secret that most governments are not technology experts, nor should they be! But by taking a more facilitative approach to government technology, city governments can focus on their core competencies (listening to citizens’ feedback, and allocating resources to address the most important issues) and lean on its people and institutions in domains of lower capacity (letting local developers build its web apps). This paradigm is sometimes referred to as “government as a platform”.
The future is bright for open source government service delivery. For years, civic hackers around the world have been building websites, apps, platforms, and databases that improve public interfaces with government services. Examples are abundant: an iOS app that gives public insight into water table levels in San Antonio, a visualization tool that monitors gentrification trends in Boston, or a platform that empowers apartment dwellers of New York City to take legal action against landlords’ abuse of heating codes. But to maximize the value of these innovations, it’s critical that governments can partner closely with technology communities, bringing projects into the fold of official governmental offerings. With this shift, governments can provide more comprehensive and efficient services, while developers and creators can maximize the reach and impact of their important work. Here’s hoping that more cities around the world will follow in Boston’s footsteps and forge tight working partnerships with their technology communities.
Sources:
Digital Team (2016, October 28). BOSTON.GOV IS NOW AN OPEN SOURCE PROJECT. Retrieved from https://www.boston.gov/news/bostongov-now-open-source-project
