Despite the many innovations of San Francisco 2010, a lot of public data is still hard to access, siloed within individual city departments and time-consuming to unearth. Some feel that as a result of this lack of transparency, politicians too often set policies without worrying the public might contest their assumptions about the community - like if hot spots of poor health have access to hospitals. Meanwhile, traditional and new media reporters are hobbled in their ability to inform citizens as thoroughly as they could, not simply because of the much-ballyhooed cutbacks in mainstream news orgs, but because California's data - that driver of policies and lifeblood of journalism - is hard as hell to get at.
"How we get privately held data and publicly held data is very painstaking," said Denise Gammal, vice president for strategy and organizational learning at Bay Area United Way. "There hasn't been a great source that's readily available and easy to use for a wider audience."
A new statewide community data-mapping Web site called Healthy City California, slated to launch Wednesday, hopes to change all that.
How to use Healthy City California from Cassidy Friedman on Vimeo.
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