A recent article in the Southtown Star estimates that it cost Will County (on the Southside of Chicago) nearly $600,000 to obtain the high-profile murder convictions of Drew Peterson and Christopher Vaugh. Some of the charges were for evidence that wasn’t even used: since 2009, the county paid $75 per month for a storage locker to house the …
As a follow up to yesterday’s post about the SimCity zoning map of Chicago, I’d like to point out that the map is a collection of interactive apps developed by Open City based largely on information from Chicago’s data portal. A couple of other apps by this project that I think are really interesting are …
Continue reading ‘Interactive Map of Chicago Crime, Ward by Ward’ »
Hat tip to the Atlantic Cities blog for pointing out this great interactive zoning map of Chicago modeled to look like the classic computer program SimCity 2000. As a product of the SimCity-2000 age, I think that this map is awesome. You can even listen to the SimCity music while you view it!
As covered by Government Technology, Chicago has upgraded the ChiTEXT component of its 311 system to allow citizens to complete most 311 tasks via text. Texts will prompt a series of scripted questions to better identify the problem: For a pot hole, for example, you may get asked if it’s near a curb line or …
Continue reading ‘Chicagoans can now complete most 311 tasks by text’ »
Here’s an exciting announcement for those of us in Cook County. The County is following the City of Chicago’s lead to create a state-of-the-art data portal at data.cookcountyil.gov. I’m particularly interested in the “courts” data. Here’s a press release for webcast about the portal this Friday (and a couple of other events that are part of Cook …
Continue reading ‘Cook County webcast this Friday on new Socrata Data Portal’ »
Yesterday, the city of Chicago approved a plan to collect unpaid parking fines from state tax refunds. As the Chicago Tribune pointed out, this “power to dip into tax refunds before they’re sent out comes from a little-noticed state law that took effect two months ago that allows cities and school districts to go to …
Continue reading ‘Chicago’s clever new way to collect unpaid parking fines’ »
Chicago, compared to cities like Boston or Denver, has relatively unbridled power to levy taxes (in addition to those imposed by the state). This is because Illinois amended its constitution in 1970 to give the Chicago broad fiscal “home rule” powers—that is, control over local concerns. In fact, the Illinois Constitution says that the “[p]owers …
Continue reading ‘Chicago’s unique tax powers and what it means for innovation’ »
Wanted to highlight an app from last year’s Apps for Metro Chicago competition called OkCopay. The app compares the cash price of medical services. It’s primary for people to shop around for those services not covered by insurance. It also compares other variables, such as years of experience and distance from your geographic area, though, …
Here’s a chart from Chicago open data about the progress report for Chicago Public Schools for the 2011 to 2012 school year. Here’s what I did. I narrowed the list of schools down to 208, including only those that had data in these three categories: ISAT (Illinois Standard Achievement Test) Exceeding Math %, parent engagement …
A recent study by Dr. John Miller at Central Connecticut State University has been getting buzz lately for comparing census poverty data to his study of literacy rates in 75 metro areas. As reported in The Atlantic Cities, he found no correlation: Using US Census data for income in the relevant cities, I learned that …
Continue reading ‘Do wealthy cities have higher Internet literacy?’ »