The Young History of Open Data Leadership in Pittsburgh

Celebrating two years of open data in the Pittsburgh region and one year since the launch of the Burgh’s Eye View mobile web application (covered by Planetizen in July 2017), "the city’s Digital Services Team released an open data progress report, detailing its accomplishments and efforts to make its data an accessible public asset," report Sanjana Dayananda and Robert Burack.

According to Dayananda and Burack, Pittsburgh has been a national leader in open data since the beginning of the Peduto Administration. The city of Pittsburgh partnered with Allegheny County and the University of Pittsburgh to create the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center (WPRDC)—"the country’s first truly regional open data platform."

According to the article, the progress report focuses on user stories in the hoes of demonstrating the usefulness of open data to spur adoption in new communities. For instance, the article details the open data applications that the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health has employed in fighting the opioid epidemic, as well as the open data used by the city of Pittsburgh in crafting new neighborhood plans in neighborhoods like Homewood and Hazelwood.