Politicians like to downplay how effective the government is, constantly offering critiques for bureau chiefs, teachers, and other public employees. While some pieces of local process do seem hopelessly outdated—the process of filling out important lifecycle documents by typewriter, for instance—a few recent high-profile efforts to bring the government into the twenty-first century deserve a look here on BPR. Judge for yourself whether these are gimmicks or good ideas for a more responsive local government.
First, our neighbor Boston had a fun idea: take the town hall to the people. Boston’s government staffers made a Food Truck-Style Town Hall – which they call City Hall To Go. At the truck, “residents can pay parking tickets and tax bills, get a library card and dog license, even register to vote.” Because so many of these tasks can also be done online, the truck is aimed at those who have less Internet access or weaker English. The truck also has a Twitter feed, @CityHallToGo, and residents can tweet questions to the truck and get responses.
Twitter and mobile devices also form the platform of California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. His book, Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government, examines how government should use social media to be more responsive to citizens. For example, he recounts how “when local Web designers wanted to prevent muggings in Chicago and Oakland, they created innovative crime-mapping tools using public police data.” He wants to “mak(e) small-town politics suddenly as fun and addictive as online games such as Farmville.
Newsom, as Mayor of San Francisco, was in the Silicon Valley mix for many years and received much campaign and civic support from tech firms. However, I do worry about the digital divide concerning many of his proposals. Will this be another way the wealthy gain an advantage in accessing government?
Some 21st Century technology certainly helps govern better. For example, there is evidence that the FDNY Twitter feed helped save lives during Superstorm Sandy. A citizen being able to tweet directly to the FDNY and get response exemplifies the interaction Newsom believes is the future of local government. How much of the online-mobile-app government movement is flash and how much is substance? Time will tell.
“Politicians like to downplay how effective the government is”… Needs some grounding in facts. Two questions:
– How effective is the government?
– Is that level significantly higher than the majority of politicians are implying?
You may or may not be starting from the position of “the government is effective” (sounds like you are), but either way, you are saying that the government has a certain level of effectiveness and that politicians are making it appear like the government is less effective than that level.
However, I could just as easily believe that politicians are highlighting how ineffective the government (or areas of the government) is/are. Look at all the issues surrounding the VA system. Granted, I only know what the Daily Show tells me… haha.