Public Information

The City of San Francisco has for years had a "Sunshine" ordinance, requiring that public agencies make their documents and proceedings available to the public. But recent reviews show that sunshine has been hard to find in the city of fog.

The Los Angeles Police Department's crime-tracking website has been omitting thousands of violent crimes. 40% of crimes reported so far in 2009 are not included in the public website.

The story of how an iPhone application charting public transit arrival times led to as-yet-unanswered questions about who owns this public data -- or whether it can be owned at all.

Infrastructure and technology are blending together, creating infrastructure and infrastructural management more responsive and intelligent.

A new search tool from Google makes it easy to find public information, a move the company hopes will encourage governments to be more transparent with their data.

This article from Next American City looks at the strengths and weaknesses of the website EveryBlock.com, an automated, geography-based information aggregator.

With increasing amounts of data collected and held by governments, there's a lot of opportunity to make use of it for the betterment of communities, according to this column from Neal Peirce.