Techies Embed in City Hall

The Atlantic Cities, a new city-centric site brought to us by The Atlantic magazine, scope begins and ends with the goings-on in cities throughout the county. Naturally, this type of publication would have something to say about us here at Code for America:

Techies Embed in City Hall

The increasingly wired world has inevitably met the notoriously slow-moving gears of city government. City websites, apps and online tools are becoming an integral part of local government. Or at least they’re starting to.While some cities like San Francisco and New York have been leaders in developing a software side of the city, others simply don’t have the time or resources to upgrade to Government 2.0. A program entering its second year is on a mission to help those cities get there, and so far it has produced some promising results.

Code for America connects selected fellows with cities that need their services. It’s based on the Teach for America model, where recent graduates are sent to school districts with few resources. Like underperforming schools, there are plenty of cities that can use all the help they can get.

In its first year, the program has built a variety of applications and tools for cities, including awebsite that helps Boston parents find schools for their kids, an app that calculates the solar potential of rooftops, and tools that help residents interact with city 311 systems for non-emergency services.

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