In February of last year, Governing Magazine published a list of the bet state and large city websites (Attached). I was surprised to see that only 35 percent of cities had websites then. How can we expect governments (especially at the local level) to embrace Web 2.0 when they have not even embraced the Web?!?!?!

I know that at Gahanna, the main hurdle that keeps us from taking our website to the next level is a lack of resources. We need a person who will act as a Public Information Officer, but can also use today’s technology to its fullest in order to engage citizens and keep them informed.

Brandi 2/11/08

winningest.pdf

I'm actually not that surprised at the 35% figure above. Sure, I expect medium and large size cities to have websites, but when it comes to smaller cities, they may not need to have websites because other “networking infrastructure” satisfies public needs. Town hall meetings, fliers, word-of-mouth may be sufficient to connect with the public to get word out on certain issues. I believe citizens may become more engaged if they had a website to go to, but maybe it isn’t needed at this point for certain "cities" (villages, towns, etc) in the world.

On the topic of cities and winning websites, I did come across this one: Rethink College Park It won an award from Planetizen as a 2008 Top 10 Website. It is not a city government sponsored website, but is one set up from citizens within College Park, MD. If governments will not take adequate action to address citizen needs where a large gap exists, the public will take initiative to inform, debate, voice opinions, and contribute to local activities (or lack thereof) in the Web 2.0 world. The public is taking a more hands-on approach when their voices aren’t quite being heard by city leaders, and the increase in citizen involvement on the web will no doubt create more sites like these. I think there’s a lot of great conversation relative to their issues and a lot of the blog entries have quite a few comments. The 2 guys who started this site are very committed and involved in the development of where they live, work and play.

Christie 2/11

One idea for government agencies strapped for resources is collaborate with citizen groups and/or local media to get content out there. Providing easier (electronic) access to public records and raw data would do a lot to increase transparency, and chances are you'd find someone in the public realm with the time and talents to translate that content into something that is useful to your organization and the public at large. Here's an example of what I'm talking about -- a Virginia interfaith coalition worked with the General Assembly's legislative information services office to parse all of the raw data from each legislative session into something useful and reader-friendly: Richmond Sunlight. The site, which is produced by volunteers, also includes a blog on related news coverage, historical electoral information and fundraising info. Seems like this is an area where government agencies with limited resources could get creative about outsourcing content development to the benefit of the agency and the public.

Amanda, 2/11/08

I'm both surprised and not at all surprised with the 35% number. As a public sector employee, I understand the financial constraints of government more than most people, especially since I'm trying to spur an upgrade of my agency's website and fight fiscal and bureaucratic battles on a daily basis. Building a website in this day and age can be easy and inexpensive. Building a highly functional website, on the other hand, can be difficult and costly. As a result, many localities most likely have difficulty rationalizing the construction of a functional website due to the cost, especially if their public administration is efficient and they cannot foresee much change for the better through a web upgrade.

- Matt McQuade 2/11/2008

Another issue is that if a website is efficient and citizens are able to communicate more with their government then there is an expectation created that the government will respond in some way.  Many governments lack resources to adequately interact with citizens so keeping a website at a 1.0 level takes the burden off the government to respond.

- Sarah, 2/12/08