Minneapolis advances smart city strategy with 40 real-time data dashboards

The City of Minneapolis has launched its new DataSource resource which presents over 40 dashboards of continuously updated data.

The tool pulls datasets on several aspects of the city’s work and services including elections, housing, community safety and health.

The city said the dashboards provide transparency and a single place to find city data – for internal staff, citizens and others. The community safety section, for instance, includes dashboards on officer-involved shooting, use of force, and arrests. Public health includes COVID-19, air quality and community gardens.

The dynamic dashboards respond to user clicks and filters and aim to provide intuitive navigation and visual data representation.

This move is part of the city’s strategic plan to move towards data-driven decision-making and to become a smart city, which Fadi Fadhil, Chief Information Officer, City of Minneapolis, defined as “a city that collects, studies and analyses data, and acts on it.” The city’s data strategy is based on the idea of ‘digital quilting’ whereby data systems are connected to make a ‘fabric’ of information, stitched together by systems.

Data scientists

In an online presentation to city council members, Fadhil said: “This is not just putting the data at your fingertips; it almost turns us all into data scientists,” by allowing people to see trends.

He said DataSource’s features and dashboards will continue to grow and the ambition is that it will include almost all city data in future. His team is now working on adding demographics data and prioritising new enhancements and feeds.

“We’re going as fast as we can,” Fadhil said. “This product is not perfect but we had to make a choice: do we keep building it and not putting it in your hands and the public’s hands [until] it’s perfect? Or do we put it out there and continue to improve and continue to add to it? The best way to improve a product is feedback and that’s what we will be looking for.”

Steve Fletcher, Minneapolis Ward 3 City Council Member, welcomed the launch of the tool, saying: “People have been asking for this for a long time. We are in an era of, sometimes on social media, rumours and misinformation. People sometimes feel like we’re trying to hide things too…and I think it’s very important for us as a city to talk about the facts and to get the feedback…and to get everybody on the same page about what reality looks like.”

He said: “Having these tools so that everybody can form their own conclusions based on the same set of facts is game-changing for a city.”