7 Tactics for 21st-Century Cities

[Commentary] For four years, Code for America has worked with dozens of cities, each finding creative ways to solve neighborhood problems, build local capacity and steward a national network. These aren’t one-offs. Cities are championing fundamental, institutional reforms to commit to an ongoing innovation agenda. Here are a few of the ways how:

1. Create an office of new urban mechanics or appoint a chief innovation officer.
2. Appoint a chief data officer or create an office of performance management/enhancement.
3. Adopt the Gov.UK Design Principles, and require plain, human language on every interface.
4. Share open source technology with a sister city or change procurement rules to make it easier to redeploy civic tech.
5. Work with the local civic tech community and engage citizens for their feedback on city policy through events, tech and existing forums.
6. Create an open data policy and adopt open data specifications.
7. Attract tech talent into city leadership, and create training opportunities citywide to level up the tech literacy for city staff.

[Abhi Nemani is co-director of Code for America]