Delicious data inside. Photo by Anabadili via Flickr.

The effort to open municipal data is an initiative with momentum. Inspired in part by the transparency mandate on the federal level that gave us the first ever White House CIO and data.gov, cities across the country are opening up. One city in particular set the scene before this all hit the national stage: Washington D.C. has delivered precedents like the first online city data directory, the first open API for 311 service requests, and open invitations for developers to produce apps with city data using initiatives like Apps for Democracy.  D.C. has laid the groundwork for a national model by delivering some killer apps. Previously the CTO for D.C., Vivek Kundra is now the national CIO. This model has not yet been fully embraced by New York City, but it’s getting close. In fact the New York State Senate Office of the CIO has been paving the way for opening government data on the state level.

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