OpenPlans.org – engaging communities through journalism and open source software

OpenPlans.org is a website that promotes the use of technology to effectively and rapidly communicate civic needs with community leaders on both a local, regional, and national level. The website uses journalism, videos, and open source software to help community groups organize, share information, compile data, and create news releases. Specifically, sites such as Fix City Bike Racks allows bike riders in New York City to quickly identify those sites that need attention by either uploading a photo of the bike rack, using prearranged Twitter code, or visiting the web site directly and clicking on a map.

OpenPlans is an advocate of the concept of open data provided by open government. The Open311 initiative has been developed using the cities of San Francisco and Washington D.C. to understand what citizens need from their government, and how the government can more easily provide that information to them. This initiative spawned the ‘Apps for Democracy’ contest, which encouraged citizens of Washington D.C. to come up with ideas about how to make city services more accessible and useful for cash prizes. These ideas were then translated by software developers into useable software applications. The winning apps tended to focus on highlighting sections of the city that required repair, such as potholes, by taking camera-phone photographs of them, much like the Fix City Bike Racks website.

OpenPlans ‘Streetsblog’ is a compendium of local blogs focusing primarily on issues of transportation. As a journalistic enterprise, Streetsblog has had a surprisingly effective impact on policy, helping to mobilize government leaders into taking action on putting in more pedestrian and bicycle friendly pathways throughout urban areas. GothamSchools is a blog dedicated to issues of public education in New York City. GothamSchools has helped interested New Yorkers connect and begin implementing changes to their public school curriculum. OpenPlans has also helped to launch a suite of open source software known as ‘OpenGeo.’ OpenGeo creates course material from a global community of teachers, and also offers training for those who do not have extensive experience using the software.

Governments can benefit from OpenPlans considerable roster of projects by embracing the concept that sharing data and forming networks of interested and motivated participants is the best and most cost-effective way of solving civic problems. By working in direct response to clearly articulated citizen needs, software developers can quickly create programming that is useful and essential. More importantly, sharing data allows for a much more efficient use of resources. Governments can allocate exactly the amount of funding needed for a particular project because the raw data is available for more accurate estimation. Using open data, similar civic projects that may or may not be aware of each other can be grouped more effectively, saving both money and time.