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| Service Delivery |
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Finland's postal service will begin opening household mail and sending scanned copies of letters by email to reduce costs and pollution. The volunteer-only pilot project is intended primarily to test Finnish citizens’ comfort with receiving mail in this fashion. The service still gives customers the option of receiving a scanned document in its physical form. It also filters out junk mail. Despite the promise of strict confidentiality, the test has ignited privacy concerns.
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| Economic Development |
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In the United Kingdom, the North Tyneside Council is dampening the impact of the recession by covering up empty shop units with simulated storefront images. The goal is to maintain a pleasant visual atmosphere so that the area continues to attract shoppers, investors, and new businesses. The government-funded project uses different designs to fabricate different shop types.
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| Civic Engagement |
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To increase citizen participation, Cornell Law School and the Department of Transportation have launched RegulationRoom.org, a moderated blog that engages citizens in the rulemaking process. The government’s current e-rulemaking site, Regulations.gov, relies on static forms to solicit public input on proposed regulations. The new Regulation Room blog, on the other hand, is intended to engage interested citizens who may not be familiar with the regulatory process. Interest groups are notified about the blog, and the relevant regulations being discussed therein, via social-networking tools like Facebook and Twitter. Comments on the blog are summarized and then submitted to the Transportation Department.
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| Fire Prevention and Response |
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The U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are piloting a program that places high-definition cameras at the top of communications towers to aid in the detection and assessment of fires. The cameras can act as a second eye to back up or confirm reports from individuals in lookout towers, resulting in more effective and cost-efficient responses.
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| Arts and Recreation |
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San Francisco is working on the creation of “parklets,” widened portions of sidewalk that repurpose on-street parking as public space. The parklets, which may include benches, planters, and bike racks, give pedestrians the chance to sun and socialize, and are attracting the interest of other major cities.
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| Courts and Legal Services |
Dallas County, Texas,
is setting up specialized
courts to work with veterans whose crimes may have been sparked by
post-traumatic stress disorder, head injuries, or addiction. Judges sitting on
these courts, which are modeled after drug courts, will divert promising
candidates to treatment and therapy instead of probation or jail. Those
veterans that complete the program may be eligible to have their criminal
records expunged.
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| Corrections, Probation, and Parole |
In Maricopa County,
Arizona, inmates will pedal on stationary
exercise bikes to power their televisions. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, believing
that half of its inmates at the Tent City correctional institution are
overweight, hopes this program will motivate the prisoners to get more exercise.
Inmates will also receive the privilege of watching any local channel, not just
the three channels they were previously restricted to.
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| Public Infrastructure |
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San Francisco may be the first city to count all of its parking spaces. Armed with this knowledge, city planners hope to make better decisions around managing the supply and allocation of free and metered parking, and to better inform the heated discussions that surround such decisions. Better parking management should also reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions caused by circling drivers looking for limited parking.
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| Services to Specifc Populations |
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Rather than relying on the police to retrieve them, one senior center in Düsseldorf, Germany has built a fake bus stop in front of its clinic to “catch” escaped Alzheimer’s patients, who will wait for the fictitious bus long enough for staff to find them and encourage them to return. Disoriented patients will often endanger themselves by leaving their nursing facility in order to return to non-existent homes and families.
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| Housing |
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This article from the Economist surveys green building in affordable housing initiatives. New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which develops and maintains the city’s affordable housing, will require all its new projects to adhere to green criteria that include water conservation, energy efficiency and the use of environmentally-friendly building materials. Similar measures are being adopted in Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, and Denver.
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| Government's Prize-Winning Strategy |
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Federal, state, and
local governments are turning to competitions
and crowdsourcing to spur innovation. This promising practice allows the
public sector to pay only for results.
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| Beyond Charity: For-Profits that Promote Social Good |
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CEO Bo Menkiti argues
that nonprofits often create an
entitlement culture that does not adequately value the contribution of the
consumer.
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| The Future of IT in the Public Sector |
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In this short video, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Jerry Mechling uses New York’s 311 system to illustrate how the government’s future holds more fundamentally transformative shifts from in-line to online.
Newsletter produced by: Jim Cooney, editor; Brendan St. Amant, researcher and writer.
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About the Ash Center
The Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation advances excellence in governance and strengthens democratic institutions worldwide. Through its research, education, international programs, and government innovations awards, the Center fosters creative and effective problem solving and serves as a catalyst for addressing many of the most pressing needs of the world's citizens. The Ford Foundation is a founding donor of the Center. Additional information about the Ash Center is available at http://ash.harvard.edu.
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