Resources & News

What Works Cities: The Guide to Remote Community Engagement

August 27, 2020 – The Guide to Remote Community Engagement is a collection of resources designed to support cities that want to create and maintain strong, institutionalized practices of community engagement during periods of remote working in an increasingly digital world. Posts include strategies for social media-based community engagement, steps for closing the digital divide, engaging non-English speaking residents, and more.

What Works Cities: COVID-19: Local Government Response and Resource Bank

March 19, 2020 – Explore What Works Cities’ regularly updated Local Government Response and Resource Bank to see examples of cities leveraging data to respond to COVID-19.

What Works City Feature: Gainesville, FL

For Gainesville, Florida, being a citizen-centered city is a priority. Mayor Lauren Poe and City Manager Anthony Lyons have created opportunities to collaborate with residents when developing innovations and determining how the City sets its goals. However, the City’s ability to use data to measure its progress on meeting these goals was limited. As the City began to relaunch a strategic planning process, Mayor Poe and City Manager Lyons asked What Works Cities to work alongside their team to help improve the City’s use of data and evidence to evaluate the community model priority.

What Works City Feature: Oklahoma City, OK

Oklahoma City leadership has remained committed to transforming the City, particularly downtown, over the last 20 years and is committed to using data and evidence to improve service delivery. However, one of the biggest challenges for leadership has been keeping up with the increased demand for services in the wake of narrowing revenue streams. Former Mayor Mick Cornett asked What Works Cities to help the City enhance its use of data and evidence and its procurement processes to ensure the best outcomes for the infrastructure projects.

What Works City Feature: Olathe, KS

As the City of Olathe, Kansas, has grown, so has its interest in using data to improve services provided to residents. To expand such efforts, Mayor Michael Copeland and City Manager Michael Wilkes asked What Works Cities to work with Olathe to improve data transparency and the use of performance measures, specifically regarding transportation.

What Works City Feature: Long Beach, CA

The City of Long Beach has a history of leveraging new and innovative ways of improving the lives of their residents, the success of their businesses, and the outcomes of their youth and education institutions. To elevate this priority and raise the profile of data-oriented work in the City, Mayor Garcia and City Manager West asked What Works Cities to help Long Beach upgrade its data management and performance analytics practices in order to provide better support for current and prospective local businesses.

What Works City Feature: Tempe, AZ

In August 2016, Tempe City Council approved a revised strategic framework focused on better using metrics to track five priority areas and restructuring small parts of the city government to best meet those needs. To help supplement this work, Mayor Mark Mitchell and the City Council asked What Works Cities to provide support that would enhance the City’s performance management and make municipal data more consumable and scalable for agencies and residents.

Sunlight Foundation: “Unseal the Deal! How open contracting can improve your city’s procurement process”

June 6, 2018 – The Sunlight Foundation hosted a webinar on open contracting with their partners from the Open Contracting Partnership, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Government Performance Lab (GPL), and the City of Glendale, Arizona. The webinar discussion included a general overview of open contracting, tips for how to do it well, and how Sunlight and GPL worked with the City of Glendale to make their contracting more open, as part of What Works Cities.

Data Points Podcast Episode 55 – Creating Racial Equity in Grand Rapids

May 29, 2018 – In this episode of the Data Points Podcast, Sharon Paley and Tiffany Davis take a deep dive into the innovative and data-driven approach which Grand Rapids, Michigan is taking to meet this complex issue head on. Over the past six months, GovEx, through What Works Cities, has been supporting Grand Rapids’ efforts to increase racial equity by improving data management practices and bringing data and evidence into the decision-making process.

Center For Government Excellence At Johns Hopkins University (GovEx): First Things First: Laying the Foundation for a Smart City

May 25, 2018 – This guide is the product of a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded research collaborative composed of University of Maryland, Morgan State University, the Center for Government Excellence (GovEx) at Johns Hopkins University, and University of Baltimore. Since October 2017, these research institutions have worked together to determine how data and technology can meet the needs of residents in West Baltimore communities. This guide captures the experience of these partners in Baltimore and other cities around the country in laying the foundation for a Smart Cities project that meets the needs of residents and improves city service delivery.