There is a movement afoot to encourage citizen participation in correcting neighborhood problems. Some cities have a 311 number and some have developed iPhone applications whereby you can notify city departments about litter or maintenance issues. There is a general iPhone app called See Click Fix which affixes the photo to a geographic location and assembles the complaints onto a map. Then, what is supposed to happen is that a city worker pulls the data and sends it to the relevant department. Seems like there is a lot of potential here to get more power into the hands of the people regarding everyday annoyances.
Article in NY Times.
iBurgh, Pittsburgh's effort
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There's also an effort to create a standard to ensure interoperability for 311 technology between cities:
http://www.open311.org
^thanks. I'm very interested to see how different cities embrace this technology.
This prompted me to find the Citywide Customer Service Call Center, which seems to provide the 311 function (just with a less memorable phone number). They also have an online request form. I like the fact that you can search previous complaints based on street/neighborhood.
Any idea why the city doesn't use the 311 number like other cities?
In NYC, when 311 was implemented there was a huge advertising campaign and the 311 logo appears on just about everything the city puts out. Why no similar push in Cincy?
As far as an iPhone/mobile app, as a starter, it seems (to this non-programmer) like it would be pretty easy to make a non-sanctioned app that takes advantage of the existing online form. But you would obviously miss out on the photo/GPS functionality. But it would at least be a start. If more people used it, the city might invest in new functionality.
Seems like a good campaign opportunity for some city council/mayoral candidate...
OK - answered some of my own questions with this memo from Milton Dohoney to the Mayor and Council. (for some reason you can't view the pdf directly - you have to download it first - sorry.)
Sounds like they're looking at it, but I don't know if I agree with the recommendation against a Basic 311 system - basically that "more people will call". And that's bad because?
^thanks DP for finding that memo. I think that this is a critical basic service that the City should provide. 311 could also be a County/City collaboration.
I am now plugging Cincinnati's number 591-6000 into my cell phone. I needed it this morning as we waited for the school bus next to an exremely overloaded public garbage can.
I also plan on using the online reporting method more often.
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