More than 10k problems fixed through 'Improve Detroit' app | Hacker News Reader

More than 10k problems fixed through 'Improve Detroit' app

motorcitymuckraker.com

148 pointswerber42 comments

New York pioneered this with their 311 phone service. That was originally set up to get minor problems off of 911, and ended up being the main way citizens get the city to do something.

With a mobile phone, you can have pictures and geolocation, which helps. It's a good way to report health and safety violations, because you get pictures.

The real question is, do you get a ticket number you can track? Any support service where you can't track your requests is more cosmetic than useful.

The 311 phone service was actually pioneered by Baltimore, not NYC, starting back in 1996.

Well, NYC has the first 311 app[1] that I'm aware of, so that's pretty cool.

1: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nyc-311/id324897619?mt=8

The app that Detroit was built on, SeeClickFix, came years before the NYC app and has the added benefit of displaying all other existing open issues. Detroit and SeeClickFix also support the Federal Open Data Standard, Open311 which is groundbreaking in itself.

Yes there is tracking for each item submitted that the citizen can follow. I think this is the best part of the entire app to be honest, allowing a resident of Detroit to see in real time that the problems they've pointed out have been acknowledged and are actively being worked on are huge in this city.

With the data being open for the first time it makes everyone in city government accountable. If the wait time goes up to fix a problem it rises in the hierarchy eventually reaching the mayor. Before stuff got buried and now that is virtually impossible.

That's 54 things fixed per day, that's quite a lot. Props to Detroit on making their data so explorable[1], according to the data[2] it looks like the app is working.

Also this heatmap[3] absolutely destroys my Firefox.

1. https://data.detroitmi.gov/Government/Improve-Detroit-Submit...

2. https://data.detroitmi.gov/resource/fwz3-w3yn.json?$select=i...

2. https://data.detroitmi.gov/Government/Improve-Detroit-Submit...

Edit: That's embarrassing, I originally said 5.4 things fixed a day (which is not that good)

10,000 plus fixed issues within 6 months does not equal "5.4 fixed issues per day"

OP clearly meant to say 5.4*10^1 issues per day. :P

How did you get 5.4 things fixed per day? They said over 10,000 issues fixed in six months.

10,000 / 182 = 54.94. It looks like you had a decimal error.

This would be a lot more powerful if they posted an 'after' picture as well. Good to see all that data though.

you can do that through the app! Thoughts on how we could encourage residents to do that?

Make it part of the process, send a push notification once their issue has been fixed and ask them to take a photograph of the fixed tree/rubbish free space etc to "verify that the work was done".

I'm happy to answer any tech questions about Improve Detroit.

I'm on the engineering team at SeeClickFix, the vendor partnering with the City of Detroit to produce Improve Detroit.

Here are some other ways to explore Detroit issues:

Web: http://seeclickfix.com/detroit/issues/map

Or you can access the data through the Open311 compliant endpoint: http://seeclickfix.com/open311/v2/507/discovery

Or you can use the SeeClickFix API: http://seeclickfix.com/api/v2/issues?lat=42.331389&lng=-83.0...

Our API docs can be found at: http://dev.seeclickfix.com

There seems like a horrible skew in the reports per download. You've got a few busy-body's creating a lot of complaints...

I'm not sure I understand your comment, but it is certainly true that some citizens are more active than others (a lot more active sometimes).

I'm not going to comment on whether that makes them a 'busy-body' or on the validity of their issues though.

And if you look at the TOP HN commenters you will find a horrible skew of users that comment on everything while many users hardly ever comment. No surprises here.

Is the skew enough that you have more comments than users?

Seattle has a "Find it, Fix it" app [0].

[0]: http://www.seattle.gov/customer-service-bureau/find-it-fix-i...

Boston as well[0]. The handful of times I've used it (broken bulb in a stop light, for example), the issues have been resolved within 24 hours. Pretty impressive.

[0]: http://www.cityofboston.gov/doit/apps/citizensconnect.asp

That is impressive. I haven't used the Seattle one yet.

It sounds like City of Boston has the resources to do things as they break or wear out. They just don't have the man power to check all the light bulbs or pothole as they break.

Makes sense - for something like changing a light bulb, it could easily take a crew equally as long to drive to the location from wherever they are as it does to actually make the fix. Having the crew (or someone in general) going up and down every road every night looking for bulbs to replace would be horribly inefficient.

Thanks, didn't know about this and just installed it to report some issues. Pretty cool.

Los Angeles, too:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myla311/id611079486

I wonder what percentage of submitted problems are fixed and how many issues are repeat problems.

I'm in Santa Barbara and on my walk to work there seems to be a non-stop battle between some people tagging a foot bridge and the city painting over the graffiti. Because I enjoy street art this actually brings some added joy to my commute because I never know what I might see next or how long it will last. Kind of like a real world Snapchat.

https://data.detroitmi.gov/browse?q=improve+detroit the city also has a bunch of other open data sets they publish now

I think you'll enjoy this then: http://www.mobstr.org/

My favorite: http://www.mobstr.org/red/

(Click next in the bottom right corner, some people miss it! This is the exact "non-stop battle" sort of thing you're talking about.)

Every city gov needs to issue such kind of app. Congratulations to the folks in Detroit.

My city has a website for reporting stuff like that. Unfortunately I see no evidence that it has any effect whatsoever. None of the issues I've reported have been addressed.

Reminds me of http://fixmystreet.com . Similar, for the whole of the UK.

I wish we had proper data, like the number of problems fixed before the introduction of the app. So that we could see how effective the app actually is.

A lot closer to none than 10,000...

For some key background information, I recommend this article from May: "Detroit Revitalizes City with 311 App".

http://www.govtech.com/Detroit-Revitalizes-City-with-311-App...

Not really related, but why are laymen using the word "app" to describe the service or company that operates around the mobile app? I hear this commonly: "Use the Uber app to get to the airport", "I'm a frequent seller on the eBay app".

Fix Detroit: Demolish the shit hole to the ground. Leave it several years and then rebuild a new small city and see where it goes. I say leave it a few years because if you rebuild it straight away the same scum is going to gravitate back and start shit again.

Wow. Wondering if this won't have an even bigger impact in African towns / cities as there are invariably more things to fix? Was it the app that helped with the fixing or more the city's capacity to respond quickly and fix things?

The App is just SeeClickFix. What is really impressive is that they are fixing things. I hope they can keep up the pace.

Are we only fixing problems rich people with smart phones care about?

smartphones have proven to be the number one technology bridging the digital divide in the US. If you call into the City of Detroit it will also be publicly documented in the same system: SeeClickFix.

There were 506 water main breaks that needed to be reported by citizens?

Government officials report issues as well!

WOOT WOOT!

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