American Cities: Uncle Sam wants your data

Carolyn Kaster/AP

A new portal will collect open streams from different cities, making for easier comparisons.

The federal government wants your city's data.
 
A new open data portal on data.gov creates a shared platform where American cities can make all of their streams available in one place. Four cities – New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle – have already done so.
 
The new clearinghouse features thousands of openly accessible data streams, including information on building permits filed in these cities, a regularly updated feed of Seattle Fire Department 911 dispatches, budget documents and tons of maps of things like parks, film locations and building footprints.
 
Chicago has 1,826 data feeds on the site, New York has 1,087, Seattle has 711, and San Francisco has 310. The federal government has made 6,560 of their own available.

Read more at The Atlantic Cities