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--------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ryan Wold <ryanjwold@gmail.com> Date: Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 9:51 AM Subject: Re: [sunlightlabs] US City and County Web URLs API - What could we build with it? To: Steven Clift <clift@e-democracy.org> Cc: Philip Ashlock <phil@openplans.org> Steven, Can we schedule a call? I have 9+ years experience in public service in technical/financial roles. I'm coding mostly in Ruby/Rails nowadays. Currently, I have all cities, town, counties, states, linked and searchable to Google maps (by geocode only). I'm also working on an extensible platform to pull and 'inventory' public data as well. Ryan Wold (707) 673-6722 http://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanjwold On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 9:17 AM, Steven Clift <clift@e-democracy.org> wrote: Let's chat on the tele and bring Phil into the conversation. This might be a real collaborative opportunity among a group of non-profits and perhaps government. Please tell me more about what you think you can offer with your approach. Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy New Tel: +1.612.234.7072 On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Ryan Wold <ryanjwold@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Steven, > I've been working with this data, getting it into tables, but haven't > exposed it as an API at this time. I'm working along the same lines you're > discussing here. > Please let me know if I can be of any assistance. > Regards, > Ryan Wold > > > On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Steven Clift <clift@e-democracy.org> wrote: >> >> Via the GSA, folks at the Small Business Administration got word on >> Saturday about the problem and fixed it quickly. So dig in to the API >> now. >> >> I wonder how they keep this up-to-date and whether any crowd-sourcing >> of URLs for local government sites might be deployed to build the >> usefulness of this data. Phil Ashlock on the CityCamp forum - >> http://bit.ly/cYIeKp - brought up the issue of how do we help people >> simply find their customized list of all the government units that >> represent/serve them based on their location. We've been pondering how >> we might take "Who is on your ballot" information and add who won to >> the - http://pages.e-democracy.org/Who_Represents_Me - ballot look-up >> which at least for elected local bodies it would help you find the >> sub-set of officials who represent you. But it would certainly be more >> stable to have a universal, nation-wide geo-coded "My Governments" >> look-up that at least lets you quickly find all the bodies that serve >> you. This also flows into our http://publicmeeting.info idea where >> we've shown manually just how many public bodies have public meetings >> just for Minneapolis - http://bit.ly/cYIeKp - and St. Paul - >> http://bit.ly/amOTwo -. >> >> Ultimately, having a nationwide data source that knows where local >> government websites are online and what location/addresses they >> serve/represent would open up all sort of opportunities to help people >> get a personalized way to interact with their government. For example, >> imagine a dynamic Google site search limited just to your governments >> or "intelligent" scrapers that you could send into gather government >> data of a certain kind (like public meeting notices and agendas :-)). >> >> Steven Clift >> >> >> From: Steven Clift <clift@e-democracy.org> >> Date: Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 8:50 AM >> Subject: US City and County Web URLs API - What could we build with it? >> To: >> >> >> Is anyone out there using this data? If not, want to? >> >> http://www.business.gov/about/features/api/geodata/ >> >> My simple idea, a geographically sortable list of local government >> home pages based on: >> 1. Geographic hierarchy >> 2. On a Google map >> 3. By latest time updated - send a robot in each day looking for >> changes on the home page >> 4. By latest time updated - a sort option within the geographic hierarchy >> 5. By population ranges >> 6. Display most/least updated by major population ranges - Help >> identify the most or least active websites in a comparative fashion >> 7. Display on a map the cities, towns, and townships with no known web >> site - then use http://TransparencyCorps.org to crowd source attempts >> to find the missing sites/pages >> >> Also, any idea if the API is built on the data collected by the US >> Census of Governments in 2007: >> http://harvester.census.gov/gid/gid_07/options.html >> >> This relates to #7 - when I dug into the 2007 Census data I found that >> MOST local governments do not actually have websites - why? There are >> thousands of rural townships and towns with no web sites. I also found >> thousands without their own URL and instead a few web pages on some >> static local tourism web site with nothing more than basic directory >> information. While I would guess 90% of the population is served with >> a local government website, this is an untold story (until now). >> Steve >> >> From: >> http://www.business.gov/about/features/api/geodata/ >> >> U.S. City and County Web Data API >> >> Description >> >> This geographic names data set provides a "mashup" of URLs for >> official city and county government web sites and city and county >> location data from the USGS Geographic Names Information System >> (GNIS). GNIS data includes incorporated places, census designated >> areas, unincorporated places, counties, and populated places. >> >> The base URL for all calls to the Loans & Grants Search API is >> http://api.business.gov/geodata/. >> >> The API is RESTful and output formats are available in XML and JSON. >> Methods >> >> * City/County Data - All URLs >> If a city or county government has more than one domain or URL, >> one URL has been tagged as the primary city or county URL. These >> methods return only primary URLs. >> * City/County Data - Only Primary URLs >> If a city or county government has more than one domain or URL, >> one URL has been tagged as the primary city or county URL. These >> methods return only primary URLs. >> * City/County Data - All Data >> These methods returns all city and county data, including >> geographic data for cities and counties that do not have web sites. >> >> >> Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com >> Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org >> Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy >> New Tel: +1.612.234.7072 >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "sunlightlabs" group. >> To post to this group, send email to sunlightlabs@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> sunlightlabs+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/sunlightlabs?hl=en. >> >
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