Update (9/21/2011) – Unexpectedly,I’ve recently joined a group to work on this open data project. Read the next blog post here.
A Mashable article from this past February titled How Open Data Initiatives Can Improve City Life discusses how some major city governments in America that have opened up public data as an API for developers to build apps and websites to improve city life.
The public data we’re talking about is roadways, parks, rivers, public facilities, civic elections, transit, and anything else really. The idea is to take all this data they have shoved in the back closet somewhere and allowing citizens to leverage this data.
Cities such as San Francisco and New York have had a lot of success with their initiatives, and I believe it’s time for Santa Monica to do it’s part.
Santa Monica is the start up hub of Southern California. We have developers, co-working spaces and plenty of start up events like Start Up Weekend. It’s also an awesome city, which means we’d have some awesome apps and websites.
Unfortunately, it’s not something I can see myself doing, but if you wanted to make this a business, I’d document the process of setting it up with Santa Monica. Then, sell that process to cities across America. People know and love Santa Monica, they’ll eat that shit up.
Just a thought.
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