Why and how US cities are making data publicly available through open data policies

What is it about?

This article measures how policies on making raw government data freely available are actually working in US cities. City governments across the US have adopted "open data" standards and policies, which require government data to be available for anyone to use, free of charge. I argue that this and similar policies are actually put into practice at lower levels of city government - in particular, functional departments (e.g., public works, police, etc.). I then measure the number of data files made available over time not just by each City, but by each department within a given city.

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Why is it important?

This matters because not all data are equally meaningful or useful, and knowing more about what data are actually made available is an important step towards evaluating open data policies in general. The article is also important for city managers and administrators, because it identifies both strategic and operational issues that are likely to make open data policies more or less useful for both the government and private users of the data.