Page 9 - GCN, March/April 2016

Startup offers city websites as a service
BY TROY K. SCHNEIDER
Spinning up a website these days is easy. It’s the work that comes after launch that’s the problem. That’s especially true for city governments, according to civic technologist Luke Fretwell. While larger cities might have in-house developers to update code and add new functionality, smaller municipalities often scrape to- gether funding for a one-time develop- ment effort, then live with the finished product for years — only to repeat
the process when new funding can be secured or the old site breaks down entirely.
So Fretwell and three other develop- ers — Kevin Herman, Jeff Lyon and Alex Schmoe — created ProudCity, which is built on the recently open- sourced WordPress codebase and promises “open-source software as a service.” Cities can get a secure, man-
aged, hosted service for a monthly fee but are also free to download all the code and host it themselves.
setting up things that are city-specific.” To get started, one need only enter
the city’s name into a search box. ProudCity instantly generates the beginnings of a geo-tailored site,
with pictures of the city (drawn from Creative Commons-licensed images on Flickr) and a ready-made map of local schools, police stations, parks, libraries and other public facilities (powered by Foursquare data, Mapbox and Open- StreetMap).
The cloud-based service also
comes ready to integrate with several other popular online services, includ- ing SeeClickFix for 311 requests, MailChimp for email list management and a suite of the top social media platforms. The last feature can help thinly staffed governments pull in content that’s already being posted to Facebook, YouTube and elsewhere so site managers can “set it and forget it,” Fretwell said. •
The platform has been tailored to city government needs, with precon- figured components to handle basic payments, service requests and other common offerings. “We want to make it easier for people to put into context what their website would look like,” Fretwell said. “It’s really customized to
DHS puts 275 GIS-based datasets online
BY AMANDA ZIADEH
To better prepare for and respond to national emergencies, the Department of Homeland Security has opened 275 geospatial datasets from its Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data collection to support nationwide collaboration.
The HIFLD Open website provides access to the datasets and up-to-date downloadable files and visualization tools. Location information is avail- able on two dozen categories of assets, from border crossings to refrigerated warehouses.
For example, users can search for major sports venues with the larg-
est capacities, find all alternative and traditional fuel stations, and view national flood data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The tools can be useful at the local and state levels for economic growth initia- tives, emergency preparedness and urban planning.
DHS and first responders can use the database to plan for disaster response by identifying hyper-local areas to pre- position supplies and equipment, said Michael Donnelly, DHS’ geospatial data architect. The database is integrated
with the geo-platform of Data.gov and other data providers using Esri’s ArcGIS platform, which makes the information widely accessible and discoverable.
In addition, developers can use the datasets for web applications, and ana- lysts can download data for modeling and predictive analysis.
“HIFLD Open marks an evolution in DHS information sharing, and we have an opportunity to be open and secure, to empower citizens and communities, to support local law enforcement and first responders, businesses and the private sector,” DHS Geospatial Infor- mation Officer David Alexander said. •
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