Working Toward Responsiveness.

• Author: Fu, Elizabeth
• Position: The Bookshelf - Stephen Goldsmith and Susan Crawford - Book review

The Responsive City: Engaging Communities through Data-Smart Governance

Stephen Goldsmith and Susan Crawford

Jossey-Bass

2014, 208 pages, $35

The Responsive City: Engaging Communities through Data-Smart Governance goes beyond the subject of technology, providing case studies of governments and communities that are challenging existing practices through the use of information and technology Written by Stephen Goldsmith, former deputy mayor of New York and mayor of Indianapolis, and Susan Crawford, Goldsmiths colleague at Harvard, the book is filled with stories of leaders in government and non-profit groups who are creating change and defining the responsive city.

The book begins with a journey from Austin, Texas, to Chennai, India, showing readers how civic engagement through digital technology is helping solve community challenges around the globe. From there, the authors discuss how to harness such civic engagement through open data and digital governance. The Responsive City then shares stories from the City of New York, New York; the City of Boston, Massachusetts; and the City of Chicago, Illinois, highlighting ways in which leaders are implementing creative solutions to government challenges.

THE BARRIERS

According to Goldsmith and Crawford, today's civic leaders face three specific barriers. The first is the "narrow and technical definition of what constitutes good work by government employees." A chapter titled "The Responsive Employee" reviews the idea of retail government. Imagine a local government operating like Finish Line, a shoe store that captures customer preferences based on past purchases. The customer can go into the store, be presented with a tablet showing a customized selection, and complete the transaction using the tablet. The authors argue that this idea may not be too far-fetched for government if employees are given discretion to move beyond the narrow definition their roles. Take the example of Boston, where a city worker knocked on a constituent's door to deliver recycling stickers just 18 minutes after the request was placed. Seeing the request come through his City Worker mobile app, the employee had stickers handy and was around the corner, so he just hand-delivered them.

The second barrier is one common in all organizations: silos. As the authors point out, silos are sometimes the result of an unwillingness to share information, and sometimes an inability to do so--and sometimes it is both. The book tells...