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New York City, New York, USA

A Data-Driven Process to Reach Net Zero Emissions: Climate Budgeting

Project Type:
Health and Wellbeing, High-Performing Government, Youth Development

This narrative was written for New York City’s 2023 Platinum What Works Cities Certification. Some content may be outdated. For the most current information, please visit nyc.gov.

At a Glance

100% of City agencies have already submitted emissions impact data with all capital project budget requests

April 2024: When NYC published its first Climate Budget.

$4 billion: Amount the City will invest in a school electrification plan, which will contribute a 3% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from government operations.

Climate Budgeting to Help Reach Zero Net Emissions

New York City has a goal to reach net-zero emissions citywide by 2050.

To reach that goal, city leaders must put data at the heart of day-to-day operations. One way the City is doing this is through a new municipal climate budget. As part of the climate budget, the City bolstered requirements for capital project budget requests to include projected emissions data, which are now being met by 100 percent of city agencies, contributing to a 27 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from government operations.

Climate budgeting is a governance system that mainstreams climate targets and considerations into decision-making through the budget process and aligns the City’s resources with its climate goals. It is a paradigm shift from the traditional budget process to a holistic approach that considers the impact of every dollar the City spends on meeting its climate goals.

NYC’s climate budgeting is a core component of the City’s strategic climate plan announced in 2023 and is being led by New York City’s Office of Management and Budget, in partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice (MOCEJ).

An early example of climate budgeting can be seen in the “Leading the Charge” initiative, a $4 billion plan now in motion, to ensure newly constructed schools will be all-electric and 100 existing schools will begin to phase out fossil fuel heating systems. The initiative will prioritize schools in low-income as well as predominantly Black and Brown communities which are particularly vulnerable to environmental injustices such as elevated rates of childhood asthma. The electrification plan illustrates how NYC is using emissions data to combat climate change and disaggregated demographic data to promote equitable health outcomes.

How else has NYC become a more data-driven government?

As one of the first big cities in the U.S. to adopt climate budgeting, New York City is showing how new decision-making processes can deliver urgently needed change. 

In 2024, it will implement a formal climate budgeting intake form for agency budget requests and publish its first Climate Budget alongside the Executive Budget. The Climate Budget will include a citywide greenhouse gas emissions forecast showing progress toward the 2050 net-zero goal, as well as data that shows how capital project plans could affect climate goals such as air quality and heat and flooding resilience. The 100% compliance rate across departments is a positive sign for standardizing climate budget processes and understanding the City’s emissions.

Does climate budgeting make funding decisions more complex? Yes. But the initiative is worth it. It allows New York City to understand the climate impact of dollars spent and then rally around forward-looking projects aligned to must-reach goals.

Tempe, Arizona, USA

 

Project Type:
Communications, Cross-Sector, Health & Wellness, High-Performing Government, Infrastructure

2023 Platinum Certification

  • Launched Vision Zero, a data-driven traffic safety initiative with a goal to achieve zerofatal and serious injury crashes. The Vision Zero task force is composed of over 50 stakeholders including city departments (police, transportation, fire) and community stakeholders (Arizona State University, school districts, public health agencies) that conducted an analysis of crash data for the years 2012 through 2017. Using that data, the task-force created 37 transportation safety strategies, including the creation of four safety corridors based on statistical analysis of a higher propensity for collisions, plans for new road infrastructure, and community outreach plans.
  • Uses a performance-led budget process based on metrics, and resident and business satisfaction surveys. For example, following an increase in emergency service calls in the Salt River Bottom, an area with significant natural hazards and a large homeless population, an Incident Management Team was launched. In 2023, the City achieved several of its goals, including 66% of people engaged accepting shelter services and 52 tons of debris and over 3,200 tons of vegetation were removed. Based on these initial results, new, recurring funding has been allocated to support the City’s high priority “community health & safety” metrics.

2020 and 2021 Gold Certification

“I am enormously proud that our city has achieved Bloomberg Philanthropies What Works Cities Platinum status. This award shows our community that we are leaders in using data to guide our community’s future and make informed decisions. We can show people that our city has saved time and money and has been able to benchmark progress to our goals because of our commitment to data.”

Corey Woods, Mayor

Compiled data from the city’s sewage system monthly to track community drug use patterns and understand the depth of opioid use.

Using this data, monitored areas with high opioid use and deployed emergency response resources and abuse prevention interventions to hotspots accordingly.

Utilized similar wastewater testing data and tracking methods to monitor COVID-19 levels and identify outbreaks.

The Desert City’s Approach to Data

Like so many other cities in the country, Tempe, Arizona has been deeply affected by the opioid abuse crisis. The desert city of nearly 200,000 is part of Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous area. This county also has the highest number of opioid-related deaths in the state.

As this public health emergency became more devastating in Tempe and around the country, Tempe’s leaders realized they needed to step up in two ways. First, they needed to be transparent about the severity of the problem facing the community. Second, they needed to create innovative solutions to help stem the opioid epidemic.

In 2018, the Strategic Management and Diversity Office, in partnership with ASU’s Biodesign Institute, submitted a proposal to the Tempe City Council Innovation Fund. The proposal focused on using wastewater to track the presence of opioid metabolites at the community level. City leaders supported the idea with innovation funds and began a partnership with ASU to tap this unlikely resource for data and to better inform decisions. Today, Tempe is on the cutting-edge of opioid abuse prevention work in the United States and has expanded this partnership to gather data on the presence of COVID-19 in the community.

“Cities may not want to call attention to opioid overdoses or abuse in their community,” said Wydale Holmes, a strategic management analyst in the city’s Strategic Management & Diversity Office.

“In Tempe, we’re courageously saying, ‘Yes, we have that, but we’re also doing something about it.’

It turns out that sewage offers an abundance of public health-related data — including a community’s drug consumption patterns. Tempe leverages its wastewater to identify areas of the city with elevated levels of opioid compounds — and then deploys emergency response resources and abuse prevention interventions to hotspots accordingly. All of this aligns to one of Tempe’s performance measures: ending opioid-related abuse and misuse by 2025, as measured by the percentage of 911 calls likely related to the drugs.

“Tempe is committed to data-informed community solutions. This first of its kind city model using wastewater-based epidemiology data informs strategic policy and operational decisions to advance community health.”

Director of the Strategic Management and Diversity Office Rosa Inchausti

It’s great to have data, but if you’re not doing anything with it or connecting it to resources and strategies for change, then it’s just information.”

Strategic Management Analyst Wydale Holmes

A New Diagnostic Matrix

Testing wastewater for real-time information about key markers of public health — everything from viruses to food contaminants to drug compounds — has been around for decades. But the approach is relatively uncommon in the United States. And no other city is trying to map the needs of residents around the opioid abuse epidemic in this way, said Dr. Rolf Halden, a professor at ASU’s Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering.

“The United States is behind Europe. Every community that has done this work has not abandoned it, which is a testament to how well it works and how successful it is,” said Dr. Halden, who leads the wastewater data collection project in partnership with the City of Tempe.

Dr. Rolf Halden and his team analyzing the wastewater samples.
Image courtesy of the City of Tempe.

Here’s how the wastewater analytics project helps the city identify opioid abuse hotspots and deploy resources strategically. Dr. Halden’s team takes raw sewage samples directly from five collection areas of the city for seven consecutive days each month. The scientists then test for four different types of opioids: fentanyl, heroin, oxycodone, and codeine.

After processing the samples, the ASU team hands off data to Tempe’s Enterprise GIS and Analytics team. The city can see where elevated levels of the four opioids are, and whether the opioids were metabolized or improperly disposed of. But the data contain no personally identifiable information — there is no way to tie data to specific addresses, neighborhoods or businesses.

Created by William Mancini for Fighting Opioid Misuse by Monitoring Community Health and provided courtesy of the City of Tempe.

All data are then published on the public Tempe Opioid Wastewater Collection Dashboard, created and maintained by Dr. Stephanie Deitrick, Tempe’s Enterprise GIS Manager. Through this dashboard and the Opioid Abuse Probable EMS Calls Dashboard, the information is analyzed by a multidisciplinary team, including Tempe’s Fire Medical and Rescue Department, to determine needed interventions. For example, if the data show a rise in opioid use among people under 18 in one area, the city might ramp up in-school outreach efforts. If one area suddenly becomes a major hotspot, the Tempe Fire Medical and Rescue Department can decide which emergency medical services and overdose prevention resources to move or increase to that area.

After implementing interventions, city officials can then track their potential effectiveness by monitoring changes in wastewater data alongside the EMS calls data. It’s a data feedback loop enabling the city to target its efforts — and, hopefully, prevent abuse and deaths.

“Dashboards allow people to quickly see overall trends within the data and to understand who is being impacted and where. Providing context is key when providing data to inform decision-making.”

Enterprise GIS Manager Dr. Stephanie Deitrick

Building a Data-Driven Culture

From its outset, the wastewater analytics project was directly tied to Tempe’s performance measure of ending opioid-related abuse and misuse. The Mayor, City Council, and City Manager set the expectation that reducing calls for opioid misuse or abuse was important to the executive leadership, and that both the goal and the performance measures supporting it needed to be shared internally with the City Council and administrative staff, community partners and externally to residents.

“Whatever we do, we always approach our employees and explain it to them and take the time to have the conversations about what we’re doing and why,” Tempe City Manager Andrew Ching said. “Every job has a purpose, and that job and that purpose exist within the framework of our strategic priorities and performance measures.”

City leaders also worked to communicate their efforts around the opioid abuse epidemic to the general public. The City of Tempe held an Opioid Town Hall in February 2019 to detail the wastewater project partnership and the types of support that Tempe provides to its residents struggling with opioids, their families and caregivers.

Anyone can visit the wastewater data dashboard and the Opioid Abuse Probable EMS Call Dashboard, designed and conceptualized by Dr. Deitrick and her team. The latter dashboard, which launched in 2018, gives Tempe Fire Medical and Rescue Department and the public a window into opioid abuse in the community. It details when calls related to abuse occurred, along with patients’ ages and genders, and the number of times Narcan/Naloxone overdose reversal medication was used during opioid-abuse related emergency calls.

Together, both dashboards inform Tempe officials’ efforts to end opioid misuse and abuse in the city, and help first responders and public health agencies on the ground see the impact of the targeted outreach and other interventions. It’s too early to tell how quickly the city will advance toward its goal — it was officially set in December 2019, when the baseline percentage of opioid-related EMS calls was 3.74 — but the right approach to data is in place to drive progress.

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold around the world and in Tempe, city leaders have once again partnered with ASU wastewater researchers and are using this data in the same manner as the opioid data. The city is following the data to find areas of greatest need and is directing resources to help.

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Phoenix, Arizona, USA

 

Project Type:
Community Engagement, Communications, Cross-Sector, Environment, Equity, Finance, Infrastructure, Public Safety

2023 Platinum Certification

Phoenix instituted data governance across departments and continuous community engagement to inform key policies, including the City’s climate action plan, contributing to the average Phoenix resident using approximately 34% less water today than the average resident in 1990.

2020 Silver and 2021 Gold Certification

Continually using data-driven planning and decision-making to prepare increasing temperatures and population numbers.

Crafted a narrative using date to make the case for increased funding for water infrastructure improvements, getting ahead of more costly potential future water shortages down the road.

Used automatic vehicle location (AVL) technology in garbage trucks to collect detailed data tracking pickup routes and analyzed which ways to pick up trash more efficiently, while maintaining safety.

Created HeatReady, a program that identified the highest temperatures and the lowest amount of shade cover, tracked and enabled equitable distribution of investment to support vulnerable areas exposed to extreme heat.

Rapid Growth in Phoenix

You might call it a good problem to have. Every single day between 2010 and 2019, the Phoenix metro area grew by about 200 people. Phoenix has been among the country’s fastest-growing cities for years, according to U.S. Census Bureau data — and it’s expected to double in size by 2040, up from nearly 1.7 million people right now.

“Phoenix was born to grow. For decades, since the 1950s, we have stretched our boundaries and reimagined what a modern desert city can be. And today, we are growing vertically as well. Strategic use of data has been an incredibly valuable guide as we continue to invest in infrastructure, technology, and services that ensure an equitable future for all residents.”

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego

All this rapid growth puts pressure on essential services — things like water, public safety, and waste management. Ensuring they remain reliable and accessible to all Phoenix residents takes careful planning that aligns infrastructure and services to where growing numbers of people live, work, and play. This is not a new challenge for the desert city, where the average daily high temperature is 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Phoenix’s population began taking off in the 1950s, when air conditioning became commonplace.

The city’s population isn’t the only thing on the rise, however. Climate change is pushing average temperatures higher in the Sonoran Desert, making Phoenix one of the fastest-warming cities in America. But not all residents feel the same heat. The hottest neighborhoods in Phoenix tend to correlate with lower-incomes.

With a hotter and more crowded future on the near horizon, the City of Phoenix is preparing through data-driven planning and decision-making. You can see this in how it is securing the most precious desert resource: water.

Staving Off a Drought With Data

One of Phoenix’s primary sources of water, the Colorado River, is becoming less reliable. City officials know this because they constantly forecast water availability while tracking regional demand and seasonal weather patterns, along with long-term climate change. The data doesn’t look good.

“Water is the lifeblood of any city, especially the fifth largest city in the nation located in the middle of a desert,” says Phoenix City Manager Ed Zuercher. “We have never taken water for granted. Continuous strategic planning throughout the decades, with data at the forefront, has allowed us to effectively manage potential supply challenges and opportunities for growth.”

With trend lines clear, city officials leveraged data to sound the alarm. Kathryn Sorensen, the Director of Phoenix Water Services, stood in front of the Phoenix City Council presenting data integrating economics, hydrology, geography and other subjects. An image of a black swan swam across the slides to underscore the possibility of a “black swan event.” Phoenix taps could run dry if the drought continued and the city remained so reliant on the Colorado River.

The Colorado River, one of Phoenix’s primary sources of water.
Photo by Mark Capurso courtesy of the City of Phoenix.

Elected officials never enjoy raising the costs of essential services. What Phoenix shows is that when the decision-makers have access to data that tell a clear story, hard decisions are made a little easier.

“Part of what we had to do to get the Council to fund big water infrastructure improvements was tell a story about what you’re getting, and why it’s worth it,” Zuercher says. In fact, by acting when it did, the Council avoided a more painful rate jump down the road, when water shortages might be imminent. “Because we started early enough with the 6 percent increase, we don’t have to do an 18 percent increase later,” he adds.

Smarter Trash Collection

Along with water, Phoenix’s rapid growth has increased demand for another basic service: trash removal.

Every 2,000 new homes typically requires a city to expand waste management services with an additional truck and worker, generally speaking. But impressively, for the past 11 years, as an additional 40,000 homes appeared in Phoenix, the city’s Public Works Department has not added one additional garbage truck, waste management worker, or increased collection fees. How did it pull this off? By using data to improve efficiency.

Using automatic vehicle location (AVL) technology in each of its garbage trucks, the city was able to collect detailed data tracking pickup routes across three months in 2019. It then analyzed those routes in search of ways to pick up trash more efficiently, while maintaining safety. Could school zones be avoided while school is in session? Could collection days for residents be strategically changed? Could dangerous left-hand turns be minimized?

AVL was implemented by the department 10+ years ago to fulfill the need of the operations team for real-time data and actionable data. In the beginning, installation of any AVL monitoring device on trucks was done using a phased approach since the collection trucks could not be taken out of service all at the same time. Nowadays, the newer solid waste trucks delivered to the city are already equipped with AVL monitoring devices and technology, per the city’s specifications.

With the help of AVL technology, the department was able to implement “New Way, Same Day” in 2012, which streamlined collections through route-balancing. “New Way, Same Day” allowed the department to collect trash and recycling containers on the same day, resulting in cost savings of about $1 million annually.

The operations team, in collaboration with the information technology and data services teams, have continuously updated and upgraded Phoenix’s AVL technology.

After diving into the geographical and logistical details, the team emerged with new collection routes that balanced safety requirements with the city’s pickup needs. This hadn’t been done since 2009 — a full 10 years prior. With strong communications about the reasons for change to both residents and the waste management workers on the ground, the department successfully updated its collection routes and systems.

Through data and efficiency, despite rapid population growth, the Public Works Department was able to maintain its monthly residential fee for trash and various waste diversion services for 11 years.

Just recently, however, the Phoenix City Council approved a rate increase to the monthly residential fee. Along with the increasing cost of providing a service, China’s stricter recycling policies, announced in 2017, greatly impacted the U.S. recycling industry resulting in a decline in Phoenix’s recycling revenue. The decline in revenue hindered Phoenix’s ability to maintain the current level of trash and recycling service it provides. But through an extensive community engagement effort to educate residents, the City Council felt confident that an increase in solid waste rates was needed to keep up with the demands of a growing metropolis.

“After more than a decade, the recent residential solid waste rate increase allows our department to maintain the same level of trash and recycling services our residents expect,” said Moreno. “We will continue to rely on good data to streamline our processes and make good decisions in managing our resources.”

Everyone Deserves Some Shade

Phoenix is the hottest major city in the United States, and it’s getting hotter. But rising temperatures threaten some residents more than others — parts of Phoenix are less hot than others due to the presence of shade and certain pavement materials.

To understand climate change’s impact on the city from an equity perspective, the city created HeatReady, a program to identify, track and respond to the dangers of urban heat. The program was funded through the Mayors Challenge, a Bloomberg Philanthropies initiative to help U.S. city leaders develop innovative ideas that tackle today’s toughest problems.

The first step was to gather basic data on heat across Phoenix. To do this, the city partnered with Dr. David Hondula, a professor at Arizona State University, who installed heat monitor sensors in eight locations.

“The Bloomberg Mayors Challenge really set us on course to begin coordinating all efforts to address the growing threat of rising urban temperatures in Phoenix. Data continues to guide us in identifying the areas of our city with the highest temperatures and the lowest amount of shade cover, enabling an equitable distribution of investment to support those most vulnerable to extreme heat.”

Deputy City Manager Karen Peters

Building on its long-standing partnership with Arizona State University, the city collaborated with researchers at ASU’s Urban Climate Research Center to gather and synthesize meteorological data from all across the city and install new sensors. Among the key findings: on the hottest days of the year, surface temperatures varied by up to 13 degrees between different neighborhoods, depending on greenness, shade cover, and other factors. The hottest spots were often in low-income communities. Dr. Hondula and his collaborators are now collecting long-term data in some of the city’s hottest neighborhoods to help the city track its progress over time in reducing heat inequities.

“Our partnership with the city on urban heat is a point of pride for the urban climate research community at ASU. We share the city’s desire to identify and prioritize the hottest and most vulnerable neighborhoods for future cooling investments. The opportunity to work in real-world settings also gives us unparalleled access to learn more about how the urban climate system works and how it can be improved, knowledge that we will work to translate into solutions with city and community partners.”

Arizona State University Professor Dr. David Hondula

The city plans to continue working with its partners at Arizona State University to place sensors throughout the city, and leverage data by strategically improving the built environment. For example, it will create shade in places where residents are in greatest need of walkable routes to public transit, and has begun resurfacing roads in pilot areas with lighter-colored pavement that doesn’t retain as much heat. There is potential for new buildings to be oriented to create better airflow and more shade in high-need places. The city continues to partner with non-profit agencies to offer cooling stations with free bottles of water and heat-safety information, at locations chosen based on heat data and public transit ridership.

Phoenix’s flyer on the warning signs of heat exhaustion
Source: Phoenix Summer Heat Safety.

HeatReady has just begun — the city is currently seeking additional funding for the program and planning to implement a comprehensive shade and cooling plan built from gathered data. But the program already shows a valuable way forward for cities on the frontlines of climate change. The city and Arizona State University are in the final stage of the development of a HeatReady assessment to measure a city’s “heat readiness.” Phoenix will be the pilot city to complete the assessment this year.

Read more about Phoenix’s journey here.

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Glendale, Arizona, USA

Using its Data Chops, Glendale Steps Up to Serve Residents During COVID-19 and Beyond.

Project Type:
Cross Sector, Health and Wellness, High-Performing Government, Technology

2025 Platinum Certification

A notable example of Glendale’s use of data is the focus on performance management and continuous improvement. Each department is required to conduct an annual evaluation tied to the City’s Data-Driven Budgeting process, ensuring a citywide culture of continuous Improvement. Additionally, Glendale’s robust performance management helps it make progress on community priorities, and every department contributes to the City-wide strategic plan. For example, in FY24, Glendale code inspectors reached their goal of evaluating all properties, driving 98% voluntary compliance, and helping with the City’s goal to reduce blight across the city.

“We are incredibly proud to be awarded the highest honor of a Platinum level Certification by Bloomberg Philanthropies What Works Cities. Simply put, the more data-informed the Council and staff are, the better we can serve our community. We have put a major emphasis on using data to make smart decisions that positively impact city services and accomplish our goals to drive Glendale forward.”

Mayor Jerry P. Weiers

2022 Gold Certification

Implemented data-driven changes when transitioning its temporary emergency assistance program to electronic systems. This allowed the city to better support residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Analyzed call data in order to help prepare the program’s staff to handle incoming calls, shortening response times and increasing positive customer service feedback. The city tracked calling data in order to create a dedicated team designed to help residents.

Launched a centralized service request portal that streamlines customer service for the entire city and ensures a request is routed to the right resources.

Glendale’s Introduction to Data

The City of Glendale, Arizona, takes pride in being a place that offers something for everyone. Professional sports are definitely in the mix — the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals and NHL’s Arizona Coyotes make their home in the city, which is about nine miles northwest of downtown Phoenix. But there’s a vibrant civic and social fabric as well in this rapidly-growing, diverse city of about a quarter-million people, manifested in arts and culture, parks, and government services.

The City’s Community Action Program (CAP) has been part of this fabric for more than 20 years, providing targeted aid to residents experiencing a crisis. The program helps residents unable to pay their rent, mortgage, or utilities due to a temporary emergency such as job loss or unexpected medical expenses. “We address the immediate need, but also work with clients to identify potential interventions with community partners and wraparound services that can help prevent the crisis from occurring again,” says Director Jean Moreno of the Community Services Department (CSD), which contains CAP.

When COVID-19 hit, demand for assistance skyrocketed and CAP’s capacities were quickly strained. When the City closed its offices due to the pandemic, CAP’s manual workflows presented a challenge. “Our work had revolved around in-person appointments to collect eligibility documents and complete paperwork,” Moreno says.

Working with Business Intelligence and Analytics Officer Jenny Durda, who the City had hired in 2019 after its initial partnership with What Works Cities (WWC), Director Moreno and her team quickly implemented a wide range of data-driven changes to facilitate CSD’s transition to electronic systems and expand CAP’s ability to support residents during the pandemic. It’s an example of what’s now possible in Glendale due to the strong data culture and foundational practices the City has built up in recent years — Glendale has focused on open data, repurposing, and performance & analytics, and received technical assistance to implement results-driven contracting from Harvard Kennedy School’s Government Performance Lab, a WWC expert partner.

CSD staff meet with Jenny Durda (at left). Image courtesy of the City of Glendale.

“Suddenly we had to develop electronic processes to deliver urgently needed aid to residents, so we embraced change, letting data lead the way forward.”

Glendale Community Services Department Director Jean Moreno

Building the Case for Change

Prior to the pandemic, residents had to call CSD to make an appointment and then apply for assistance in person. If they were missing any necessary documentation, they had to make an additional appointment to come back. The application process could stretch for weeks. Durda worked with the program administrator and key staff to revamp CAP’s call center process, starting with an analysis of call data. They discovered that even prior to COVID-19, the program was not staffed appropriately to handle all incoming calls because a performance review had never been done that would have provided data showing a clear resource deficit. With this information in hand, they worked across departments to source and train customer service representatives who had capacity to handle CAP calls.

Durda and Moreno then looked at individual performance data. They discovered that their top performer, in terms of quickly and accurately processing cases, was a long-time temporary employee. Using this performance data, Moreno was able to make the business case for transitioning the employee to full-time regular status. She was also able to address immediate staffing needs for CAP by training three library employees and a court employee who otherwise would have been unable to work during the pandemic.

“Digging into the data showed us why and how we needed to grow our capacity to meet residents’ needs during the crisis and beyond. The staffing changes enabled us to create a dedicated team that can better handle active CAP case management.”

Glendale Community Services Department Director Jean Moreno
A CAP staff member helps a resident apply for CAP aid. Image courtesy of the City of Glendale.

Process improvements, such as retooling CAP’s workflow to separate intake work from casework, also delivered efficiencies. After Durda discovered CAP’s technology platform offered online application functionality, the entire process was digitized just six weeks after the city offices closed.

Within the first weekend of the CAP application portal going live, 70 new people applied for assistance without requiring an in-person visit. Prior to the pandemic, it would have taken CAP staff four days to complete 70 in-person eligibility appointments. With data showing that some residents may lack personal computers and at-home internet access, the City also installed computer kiosks in lobby areas that were publicly accessible to facilitate online applications, and offered preliminary intake by phone.

As residents’ needs were clearly heightened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the City was able to meet demand by making staffing and process improvement changes that emerged from a data-driven culture years in the making. As a result, CAP disbursed about 9,500 payments to support utility and rent payments in only two quarters during the 2020–21 fiscal year, compared to about 2,000 the entire previous fiscal year. The program served more than twice as many households in the city during that fiscal year, pushing out around $10 million. That’s more than tenfold the average assistance provided to residents during the previous three fiscal years. Today, Glendale is one of a handful of jurisdictions in Arizona with an online rental and utility assistance application portal. The City is both sharing successes and gathering new ideas to support its data-driven governance efforts through the WWC regional network in Maricopa County.

“There’s no such thing as plagiarism in government. The collaboration between the different cities and the technical assistance we’ve received through What Works Cities has been instrumental in elevating our work.”

Glendale Community Services Department Director Jean Moreno

One City, One Portal

In Glendale, that work goes well beyond CSD. To improve service delivery and resident communications, and deliver on its commitment to be data-driven, last year the City launched a service request portal called GlendaleOne that streamlines customer service for the entire city. Residents can file requests for nonemergency services using the portal, which allows them to opt-in for real-time notifications via text, email, or automated phone calls as submissions are processed. The City paired the portal with a performance dashboard allowing residents to look up time estimates for fulfillment of each type of service request in an open dataset, and track the City’s overall performance.

The portal has dramatically improved how the City handles service requests. “Before GlendaleOne, people were tracking requests in spreadsheets, in emails, or even leaving sticky notes on desks for follow-up,” says Amy Handlong, executive assistant to Glendale’s city manager. “Now staff and residents can submit a request in GlendaleOne and it automatically routes to the right people.”

GlendaleOne has captured 27,700 resident issues since its launch, compared to about 16,000 total that the old system captured across 21 years of use. Resident response has been very positive, according to surveys conducted by the City Council. Next up for Glendale? Quarterly performance management meetings across all departments to help automate processes, improve the quality of metrics, and show the value creation of programs, says Khala Stanfield, director of the Organizational Performance Department. The mission of the department, founded with strong support from the City Council in 2019, is to lead the City’s data governance and open data efforts across departments, among other things.

“We’re supporting growing momentum in Glendale to place data and performance metrics at the center of things,” Stanfield says. “Staff have seen the impact of new approaches, in terms of level of services and building trust with the community. The pandemic has urged the need for change. We must continue to look for new processes and efficiencies going forward.”

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Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Innovation Developed from a Culture of Goal-Setting in Cambridge.

Project Type:
Community Engagement, Communication, Economic Development, Environmental, Health & Wellness, High-Performing Government, Infrastructure, Public Safety

2025 Platinum Certification

A notable example of Cambridge’s use of data is the Cambridge Preschool Program, which provides free preschool to every 4 year-old and some 3 year-olds. The City launched the evidence-based program after reviewing academic research and evaluations from other jurisdictions showing that high‑quality universal pre‑K boosts early literacy and math skills, narrows achievement gaps and yields long‑term educational and workforce gains. Since its launch in 2024, more than 1,450 children have been enrolled in preschools through the program. 

“Earning What Works Cities’ highest level Certification confirms the City of Cambridge’s commitment to using data to make informed decisions and deliver meaningful results for our residents. Platinum Certification is a powerful testament to our dedication to evidence-based policymaking, accountability, and service excellence. It reflects the hard work of our staff and the leadership commitment that has steadily strengthened our data practices—from Silver to Gold to now Platinum—by embedding data into our planning, decision-making, and evaluation processes. This recognition highlights our ongoing efforts to make Cambridge stronger, more responsive, and more resilient. We are honored to be counted among the nation’s leading data-driven governments.”

City Manager Yi-An Huang

2021 Gold Certification

This narrative was written for Cambridge’s 2021 Gold What Works Cities Certification. The City also achieved Gold Certification in 2023 and 2024 — one of only two cities to achieve Gold three times. Some content in this narrative may be outdated. For the most current information, please visit www.cambridgema.gov.

The Safety Net Collaborative Program and its social harm index sought to use data to prevent harm and crime through a safety net working with the police, schools, and human services.

The Community Development Department launched its Small Business Data Dashboard to connect people to vital information such as demographics, average industry wages, and regulatory requirements – helping residents create and grow small businesses and explore ways to increase their opportunities.

Developed a data-based predictive model that empowered the city to tackle its recycling contamination problem and target outreach to properties more prone to recycling violations, all of which cut the contamination rate to under 6 percent.

Public Safety in Cambridge

The glowing lights on the Robert W. Healy Public Safety Facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts make the entire building appear to breathe. At night, when the Emergency Communications and 911 Center receives a call, they’re impossible to miss. The LED lights along the building’s brick exterior signal activity in the emergency dispatch system. When the system is quiet, blue lights slowly fade in and out. They flicker in blue, red, or green when a dispatcher inside connects a caller to the police department, the fire department or emergency medical services. It’s a public art installation that lends transparency to essential services — and a visible reminder that the City of Cambridge is always at work responding to residents’ needs.

Image Courtesy of the City of Cambridge.

Home to world-renowned universities and scores of startups, Cambridge has a reputation for turning good ideas into reality. Kendall Square, the neighborhood that abuts the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and contains the public safety facility, has been called “the most innovative square mile on the planet.” City officials aren’t stuck in their ways and don’t get defensive when problems surface. Instead, they dive into data and proactively devise solutions that bolster services.

“I always push staff to look at different options, discuss alternative solutions, or engage in more dialogue with the community so that we can come up with the best possible solutions.”

Cambridge City Manager Louis A. DePasquale

With a population of 118,000 spread across just six square miles, Cambridge may be relatively small compared to Boston and other certified cities. But it punches way above its weight when it comes to fostering a transparent data-driven culture that delivers for residents. Within and across departments, innovation flows out of a culture of goal-setting.

“Building staff capacity and skills to use data, evidence, and stakeholder engagement is critical to our city’s ability to make more informed decisions, deliver more effective services and programs, and improve our residents’ lives.”

Cambridge City Manager Louis A. DePasquale

Evolving the Policing Model

Violent crime rates have dropped drastically in Cambridge in recent decades, in line with many other U.S. cities. Currently “only three percent of our calls for service are serious crimes,” Deputy Superintendent Daniel Wagner says. “97 percent of what we’re being called to respond to now are complex social issues.”

These issues include substance abuse, domestic violence, homelessness, and juvenile delinquency. They cannot be solved by police officers alone — so the Cambridge Police Department has evolved to act as a bridge between individuals in need of help (especially repeat offenders) and various city departments offering wraparound services. “Policing in Cambridge is not just about arrests,” Wagner says. “It’s about getting people the help that they need.”

Through the city’s juvenile-focused Safety Net Collaborative Program, individuals from the police, health, schools, and human service departments meet bi-weekly to implement a case management approach. Breaking down silos in government, city staff work together to identify services that can help individuals avoid problem behavior that leads to arrests. Research has demonstrated that Safety Net has had a significant impact on juvenile arrests (according to a 2016 study, community arrests have decreased more than 50 percent since its implementation), recidivism, and service utilization (contracting with mental health services has led to an average of 94 outpatient mental health provider referrals per year).

Evidence-based decision-making guides all of this work. With the Cambridge Police Department’s Focused Deterrence Program, officials developed a “social harm index” to identify chronic offenders and the most-effective strategies for use of wraparound services. A mathematical model is used to evaluate the seriousness, frequency, and recency of harmful behavior to identify this small group of serious and prolific offenders. They then are partnered with social service agencies, community leaders, and other criminal justice agencies to implement an evidence-based crime-prevention program to directly engage with offenders in an effort to disrupt their harmful behavior before they re-offend.

This is what the future of policing looks like, Wagner says — “proactive strategies to try and prevent harm and crime through a safety net working with substance abusers and homeless outreach and social workers.”

Data lives at the core of the police department’s work in other ways as well. The department is working to improve how it measures whether racial profiling is occurring within the police force. Police Commissioner Branville G. Bard Jr., who completed a Ph.D. dissertation about racial profiling, is moving the city away from population benchmarking to focus on the reason, duration, and severity of police stops.

With population benchmarking, Bard notes, governments look to see if a police force stops an appropriate percentage of people relative to the demographic profile of the city. But that approach doesn’t offer a full picture of a person of color’s experience with the police force. How long were they held? Were they given a more severe ticket or response than what a white person in the community stopped for the same offense receives? Cambridge’s new system is overseen by the police department’s Office of Procedural Justice, which is focused on monitoring data about police-resident interactions.

The new approach weighs the actions of individual officers against the actions the police department feels an officer could have reasonably taken in any given situation. It collects data at the individual officer level and is expected to be sharing aggregate data with the public by the end of 2020 with a sample dashboard available for the public.

Mission Control for Small Businesses

The Community Development Department (CDD) is also using data to improve the city’s quality of life — but in a very different way. It’s helping local businesses thrive.

Christina DiLisio, the CDD’s associate economic development specialist, wanted to create a tool that could help current and aspiring business owners access market research and understand the city’s business climate. In 2018, her department launched its free Small Business Data Dashboard to connect people to vital information such as customer base demographics, average industry wages, and regulatory requirements. The dashboard pulls information from the city’s open data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, and other sources to provide information on available local commercial properties, license and permitting information, and other business resources available from the city.

Robin Brown is a business owner in the Cambridge Food Truck Program. He owns and operates the Pull Up food truck which offers soul food and Latin cuisine. Brown has gone on to grow his business and has often checked in with the City of Cambridge to explore increasing vending opportunities. He’s been connected to the Small Business Data Dashboard with real estate options for potential brick and mortar locations.

“[The dashboard] lets people ask questions about their industry and have a productive conversation about potential pitfalls when starting a business.”

Community Development Department Associate Economic Development Specialist Christina DiLisio

“‘Do you know how to think about competitors? Do you know how much your goods cost?’ We can’t give people business advice, but we can give them valuable data,” DiLisio says.

Image Courtesy of the City of Cambridge.

Nudges in the Right Direction

Cambridge’s commitment to setting goals and doggedly pursuing them is hard to miss in the realm of recycling. Back in 2009, the city committed to reducing trash across the city by 30 percent by 2020 (using 2008 as baseline). Its strategy partly focused on improving residential recycling practices.

Because of its data tracking practices, the city’s Department of Public Works (DPW) knew Cambridge had a recycling contamination problem that was bad for the environment and its budget. When a load of recyclables is contaminated with things like plastic bags and clothing, it cannot be sold as easily–so waste management companies mark up their collection fees. Cambridge’s waste company sets its recycling contamination threshold at 7 percent; anything higher and the city has to pay more.

In 2018, when the average contamination rate was 11 percent, Cambridge set a new performance goal of reducing contamination to below 7 percent by the end of 2019. “Everyone in our division is really passionate about recycling and passionate about the environment,” Michael Orr, the Director of Recycling at DPW, says. “We decided we had to do this.”

If the city could train more residents to recycle properly, it would lead to more recyclable material being accepted, thereby reducing the city’s trash production and lowering hauling costs. The DPW took a data-driven approach, diving deep into contaminants so it could target its education efforts. It surveyed more than 1,000 recycling carts citywide and determined which items were most frequently the source of the contamination.

Image Courtesy of the City of Cambridge.

By individually counting the contaminants in each cart, DPW staff learned where residents needed the most help. It then began new communication practices — one involved “OOPS!” tags to nudge residents toward better recycling habits.

Image Courtesy of the City of Cambridge.

But DPW’s strategy for achieving its trash reduction goal didn’t only rely on changing resident behavior. With the assistance of What Works Cities partner, the Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University (GovEx), Cambridge developed a predictive model that allows the city to target outreach to properties more prone to recycling violations. The city also added financial incentives into its contracts with curbside pickup vendors. Now drivers can receive bonuses from the city for delivering recycling bins to collection facilities with little or no contamination, as measured by rejection rates. It’s a win-win-win: the city saves money on its overall waste bill, more material is recycled and drivers benefit as well.

By the end of 2019, the strategy had cut the contamination rate to under 6 percent. Cambridge met its 30 percent trash reduction goal in early 2019, one year early. However, the team isn’t planning on resting on their laurels. They are now aiming to reduce trash even further, to an 80 percent reduction of 2008 levels of waste by 2050.

“I’m incredibly proud of this achievement and the innovative waste reduction programs deployed by city staff,” DePasquale says. “Equally important, it highlights the close collaboration we have with the city’s passionate residents. Public buy-in and resident engagement are critical to accomplishing any citywide goal.”

Read more about Cambridge’s data journey here.

“This accomplishment highlights the deep commitment city departments have to data-driven decision-making.”

Cambridge City Manager Louis A. DePasquale

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