In the last week I’ve become very interested in how much a group of hackers could change the landscape of an area just by providing apps that open up data resources and make them easier to access and use. I initially got the idea from @onyxfish‘s Hack Tyler project.
However, what I’m most interested in focusing on is how I can improve the things I don’t like, either through application of will or technology or both:
- Tyler has a reasonably extensive bus system, but its online schedule is only available as a PDF. (You can probably already see where this is going, right?)
- The local newspaper, The Tyler Morning Telegraph circulates to nearly a third of the city’s population according to the Access Bureau of Circulations, but I could find virtually no information about the politics of local government online.
- Smith County’s only method of finding a polling place online is with a clumsy map viewing application.
- The city and county both make significant amounts of data available online (surprising given their small size), but no one seems to have done any analysis of it (disappointing since the town has four colleges).
The list goes on. Tyler has information that could be freed. Tyler has government that could be opened. Tyler has news that could be hacked. Moreover, Tyler has an almost completely unexploited market. There are no hackers there. The small number of high-tech businesses that exist in the region are either web development shops serving local businesses or robotics companies.
hacktyler.com
The thing I’m currently most interested in is archiving and cross referencing things like City/County/State Code. I’m sure the reason for this is because I’ve recently been looking into Provo City’s dog code, and wanted to look at the minutes that applied to a certain section. The only minutes available online were those for 2010 and 2011 so I called the city recorder and requested the minutes I needed. When on the phone with her I got the impression that she knew exactly what files I needed and would email them to me that day, but it has now been two weeks and I still haven’t heard anything. I find it strange that it’s strange that public information like that is so hard to get ahold of which is one of the problems I’d like to solve.
On top of that there seems to be plenty of information available. Provo has a lot of things like video and gis data available online, and the state of Utah seems to have quite a bit available too; as does Salt Lake City I’m sure. I hope to compile lists of these data sources at hackutah.com