Local Governments Offer Data to Miners

Many local governments are figuring out how to use the Internet to make government data more accessible. The goal is to spawn useful Web sites and mobile applications — and perhaps even have people think differently about their city and its government. Advocates of these open-data efforts say they can help citizens figure out what is going on in their backyards and judge how their government is performing. But programmers have had trouble getting their hands on some data. And some activists and software developers wonder whether historically reticent governments will release data that exposes problems or only information that makes them look good. It is too early to say whether releasing city data will actually make civil servants more accountable, but it can clearly be useful. Even data about mundane things like public transit and traffic can improve people's lives when it is packaged and customized in an accessible way — a situation that governments themselves may not be equipped to realize.