Stumbling Blocks on the Road to the Urban Data Revolution

Tod Newcombe looks at the "growing trend in government towards more data and better uses for it," and the obstacles holding back more widespread adoption. "State and local governments will spend $58 billion on information technology in 2013, according to the market analyst firm Gartner. And while the ongoing fiscal problems have slowed IT investments, the use of technology and automation in states and localities will continue to grow, particularly where big data and analytics are concerned."

"So are we at a tipping point, where a new golden age of city innovation is about to burst forth? Well, not quite," says Newcombe. He identifies obstacles such as the failure of mid- and small-sized cities to embrace the trend and data governance issues as obstacles to greater data integration.