Thirteen more cities join Bloomberg data initiative

Bloomberg Philanthropies has announced a further 13 mid-sized cities to join its three-year programme to help mayors improve their use of data–for free.

Called What Works Cities–and launched in April this year–the US$42-million initiative now numbers 21 cities. All receive free customised support and technical assistance from expert partners to review their current use of data and evidence, to understand where they are utilising best practices, and to identify areas for growth.

“Many cities for the first time have started making their data available to the public, and have launched performance management systems to track their progress toward strategic goals,” Simone Brody, What Works Cities Executive Director, told Cities Today. “We now know a lot about what’s most important to our cities, how they currently use data and what they are most eager to improve.”

One success story from the first intake of cities has been in Jackson, Mississippi. There the city government had never used data to make decisions about policy or funding priorities. The city’s youngest-ever mayor, 37-year-old Tony Yarber, came to office in 2014 with a commitment to make key decisions based on data and evidence. He passed the city’s first open data policy (also the first in Mississippi) and is now using data to set budget priorities and address public safety and blight in the city’s first Performance Management programme (JackStat).

Brody added that once the initiative ends, systems will be in place to further assist cities including a learning network and producing a benchmark standard on comparable data to help cities understand their performance relative to peers.

“Cities want to learn from each other and don’t often have the opportunity to do so,” she added. “They want to see what’s worked in similar cities and learn from it. Who better to help a mayor or city manager think about how to manage and track the performance of his of her affordable housing initiative than a leader from a peer city who recently implemented a similar programme?”

The 13 cities include; Anchorage, Alaska; Bellevue, Washington; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Denton, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Independence, Missouri; Las Vegas, Nevada; Lexington, Kentucky; Saint Paul, Minnesota; San Francisco, California; San Jose, California; Tacoma, Washington; and Waco, Texas.

What Works Cities will admit a total of 100 cities on a rolling basis through 2017. The next What Works Cities will be selected based on applications received by 1 February, 2016.