Best Practices: Data-Driven Cities Build Information Infrastructure

To effectively manage a city in the 21st century, what counts is what works. Now there is a new standard for measuring that level of efficiency. Bloomberg Philanthropies is recognizing cities across North America with its What Works Cities Certification. The key variable is a city’s use of leading-edge data technologies to inform decision-making.

Bloomberg’s term for this is “data governance.” To date, 62 cities throughout the Western Hemisphere have received the certification. An example of cities that were recognized this year include:

Buenos Aires, Argentina for reducing its infant mortality rate by 39 percent after analyzing healthcare data of pregnant women and using it to improve primary services.

Charleston, South Carolina for launching FloodStat to standardize how departments tracked flood rescues, allowing for a more coordinated approach to prevention and giving first responders a centralized data source to improve emergency response.

Córdoba, Argentina for saving $13.5 million in three years as a result of digital transformation work across 22 city government agencies.

Fortaleza, Brazil for reducing traffic fatalities by 57 percent in the past decade with their data-informed solutions.

Mogi das Cruzes, Brazil for using demographic data, resident engagement strategies, and an evidence-based community planning approach to address inequalities and poverty in the redesign of a vulnerable neighborhood.

Montevideo, Uruguay for developing transit intervention plans to improve traffic flow and help save lives, contributing to a decrease in its annual traffic fatality rate to 6.2 per 100,000 residents — half the country’s overall rate.

Carlsbad, California for analyzing its remote work policy, which saved the city more than $300,000 in office costs, reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 424 metric tons, and improved traffic for all residents.

Carlsbad also used leading-edge technology to optimize its Fire Operations Intelligence System that uses 911 dispatch data to provide data insights to the fire department. The new system provides real-time data visualization and reporting for fire operations. It equips the department with critical information to reduce response times and facilitate strategic planning to improve the full spectrum of emergency services.

The What Works Cities Certification initiative is administered by Results for America. With an eye to data-driven, well-managed local governments, the program evaluates municipal agencies’ use of data and evidence in decision-making, policy formation and service improvements. It provides access to experts from the public, private and academic sectors to assist cities in continuous improvement, performance management and operational excellence efforts.

The program views data not as an end in itself, but as a tool to inform policy decisions, allocate resources, improve services, evaluate program effectiveness and engage residents.

David Barrick intuitively understands this. An experienced municipal manager, he led Brampton, Ontario, Canada’s ninth-largest city, through the challenges of the pandemic, while supervising 6,000 employees and managing an annual operating budget of nearly a billion Canadian dollars.

“Data is such a broad term, used and sometimes overused in many disparate contexts, but the way to view it from a municipal perspective is one word: evidence,” says Barrick. “Decisions based on hard evidence are effective and lasting, saving resources and expanding services to residents.”

As Chief Administrative Officer for Brampton, Barrick launched the city’s BHive Business Incubator, enhanced Brampton’s Centre for Innovation through collaborative partnerships, and led a Complete City Service Inventory with associated performance metrics/KPI’s. His innovations included creating an Online Building and Planning Permit Application Process and implementation of a new agenda management tool to increase meeting efficiency, accountability and transparency.

Today, David Barrick is the Chief Administrative Officer for Thames Centre in Ontario, where his expertise in data-driven decision-making and strategic analytics is replicating his Brampton record of success.

“Beginning in the late nineteenth century, North American cities began to make dramatic improvements in the health and quality of life for their citizens by engineering physical infrastructure, from sewage systems to public transportation,” Barrick explains. “In our century information infrastructure will be the key to managing and enhancing the urban experience. This data-driven future is built not with steel pillars and concrete, but with streams of binary code. It is the new foundation for everything we hope to achieve.”

Recommended: Dangerous Intersection: Air Pollution and the Climate