Code Across Challenges: NYC 311

NYC 311

Scope:

• 311 is New York City's main source of government information and non-emergency services with 1.5M 311 requests in 2012.
• Reports are issued to the City Council, the Public Advocate, Community Boards, and the public about data collected by 311

What has changed recently?

Community boards are recognizing that 311 data can be a great way to “take the temperature” of the neighborhood and better guide the meetings

What are the specific issues at hand?

From the community boards:

• Advocacy: "I can do better advocacy, if I had data that is easier to understand and to look at.”
• Efficiency: “I want our meetings to be streamed, and edit it down a 3 hour meeting to 10-min greatest hits. If we had easier to understand 311 data, we could have more productive CB meetings.”
• Effectiveness: "I could set better Community Board agenda topics, if I had better 311 information”

From entrepreneurs and other civic volunteers:

• Trend Recognition: “Looking at 311 data to help small businesses. We've been looking at clusters of repeat concerns and overlaying different concerns based on census and other data (e.g., like proximity to schools etc).”

Suggested Challenges:

From community boards:

• Transparency and Trends: Roundup of all 311 related information to monitor service requests and explore trends (e.g., construction, noise, nuisance; count of tasks, time for completion; track construction/traffic issues)
• Data Overlay: Summary of 311 service requests, sorted by location and status. Currently used by several Community Boards.

Other Suggestions:

• Cohort Analyses: Dashboard of cohort analyses of trends over time by incident type (i.e., http://chicagoworksforyou.com/#/); top complaints per community board / city council

Data

Existing Tools and Context

• What's it like to work at NYC 311
• NYC 311 Map - NYC Government's 311 Map. NYC GIS.
• One year of NYC 311 Service requests
• Official NYC 311 apps
• NYC Cares
• Homeless Helper
• NYC Apartment Report
• NYC Rat Map
• Beta NYC Hacknight guide: https://github.com/BetaNYC/Tools-for-NYC-Council-and-Community-Boards/wiki/Nyc-311-&-community-inquiry-data-and-us-census-data
• NYC GeoClient API
• Open311 Inquiry API: NYC's 311 services, facilities, frequently asked questions, and 311 Today (daily status messages regarding Public Schools, Alternate Side Parking, and Garbage/Recycling)
• NYC gov's Open 311 on GitHub

Examples of Successful Projects in Others Cities:

• Chicago: Summary of 311 requests by request type by region; http://chicagoworksforyou.com/#/
• Boston: Summary of 311 requests in Boston: http://dailybrief.311labs.org/boston