

City of Detroit launches open data portal - rmason
https://data.detroitmi.gov/

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rmason
Here's more from the mayors press conference:

[http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2015/02/detroit_...](http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2015/02/detroit_increases_transparency.html)

This has me so excited because the number one request we've had at Code
Michigan has been for Detroit API's.

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ondrae
Now locals should fill out the rest of Detroit on the U.S. City Open Data
Census. [http://us-city.census.okfn.org/](http://us-city.census.okfn.org/)

Then you can see how it compares to other cities and have some good
conversations with city departments on how to improve the quality of the data
they do release.

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dandanisaur
Very cool and a step in the right direction. When I saw the headline, I was
crazily surprised. The only other issue I see with this, is how residents of
Detroit who do not have Internet/Access to Computers ect are being left out
(probably more than we think).

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steventhedev
Nice that they're using Socrata. My only complaint is that Socrata doesn't
expose an API to list all the datasets in the catalog.

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peatmoss
You can get this from /data.json. I've been spending a bit more time with
Socrata of late due to a research project I'm working on, and I've found some
minor issues with the APIs, but have otherwise been happy with how the data is
exposed. Also, while being grouchy about not being able to get a schema, I
found this tool, which is now on my todo list to try:
[https://github.com/socrata/datasync](https://github.com/socrata/datasync)

Socrata has been doing a nice little business here in Seattle! I keep half
expecting Tableau to buy them out and then Microsoft to buy out Tableau. This
PhD student has been keeping an eye on both as potential non-academic career
routes.

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remarkEon
This is pretty sweet. Looking forward to playing with it tonight.

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rajeemcariazo
This is nice. I hope other cities/states follow.

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peatmoss
Open data is a good start, but not enough for people to meaningfully
participate in the urban planning process. A lot of planning is informed by
manual, non-reproducible, or otherwise blackbox analysis done by agencies and
consultants. Hoping to make this part of a dissertation topic...

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JoeAltmaier
Yeah those agencies and consultants. Our school district hired those, because
school changes are laced with emotion and the school board was full of
cowards. The agency googled some data, made some powerpoint slides and charged
$150,000. The data was patently wrong, even to the board members.

But remember, consultants are just a meat shield to protect those that hire
them from criticism or accountability. So I guess it worked from the board's
point of view.

