In Philadelphia, resourceful City Councilman Bobby Henon has introduced a free app named CityHall, which has quickly become a weapon of choice for getting landlords and tenants who blight their blocks to clean up their acts, reports Dan Geringer.
A key tool in Henon's "Bad Neighbor Initiative," an effort to "target bad neighbors and landlords and to bring them into compliance with basic community standards," the CityHall App is also aimed at identifying nuissances such as garffiti and potholes.
"Henon, who introduced his CityHall App last spring and quickly saw
hundreds of Northeast residents download and use it, discovered that
when property violations go viral, most offenders cave," writes Geringer. "If they don't,
he'll summon them to public hearings and alert Licenses &
Inspections - which is never good news for a noncomplying city property
owner."
"'Sending a real-time photo and information is revolutionary,' said
the city's appreciative L&I commissioner, Carlton Williams. 'Henon
is taking it to the neighborhoods, providing people with the tools and
the access to be the eyes and ears for reporting nuisance properties.'"
"We
have 63 inspectors to enforce all the codes for 550,000 single-family
residences plus businesses and apartment buildings," he said. "We need
those eyes and ears in the neighborhoods."
FULL STORY: CityHall App is smart(phone) way to report trouble
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