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| Higher Education |
| To encourage incoming undergraduate freshmen to graduate within four years, the University of Baltimore will pay their final semester tuition, about $3,000 for in-state students and $8,000 for out-of-state students. The new program, “Finish4Free,” is designed to boost the school’s four-year graduation rate as well as reduce the financial pressures on students. To qualify, students will be required to maintain a full-time schedule and at least a 2.0 GPA throughout their undergraduate coursework. Several other colleges and universities have similar, but more restrictive, programs. |
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| Technology |
| Boston’s new mayor has installed "data dashboards" in his office — two 46-inch monitors that give him get a quick handle on key city statistics, such as complaints to the mayor's hotline, arrival times of school buses, number of potholes filled, and even social media sentiment analysis. While data dashboards are not new, the delivery of city data to the top decision-maker in real-time allows the mayor to monitor the pulse of the city at any given moment and to engage in course corrections accordingly. |
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| Waste Management |
| A new program in Los Angeles offers some residents in-home collection of bulky refuse, such as unwanted furniture, appliances, and other items. Under a partnership with the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, workers will enter private homes to collect heavy items. The program hopes to deter illegal dumping, ensure that eyesores are not left for days on street curbs, and ease the burden for those unable to move the items on their own. The six-month pilot program will perform 10 service requests a day for up to five items per appointment in select neighborhoods. After six months, the program will be evaluated to determine whether it should be expanded. |
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| Health Care |
| To help reign in state health-care costs, Kentucky officials are helping providers identify emergency room “super-utilizers.” With the assistance of technology including data analytics and geomapping, the state has identified 16 hospitals for the implementation of an alert system within the state’s Health Information Exchange to notify providers when a “frequent flier” has reentered a clinical setting. Coordinated care teams are activated to address underlying issues, which may include behavioral and substance abuse problems as well as housing, hunger, or transportation. An additional benefit of the initiative is that it could lead to improved communications across stakeholders and facilitate connections of disparate data sets, leading to better clinical decision-making. |
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| Policing & Crime Prevention |
| To help return stolen and recovered property items to their owners, the Roseville Police Department in California has launched an online property room. Officers making busts or conducting other police work that recovers such items often have difficulty determining who the rightful owners are. Now, by deploying a website that functions similarly to a traditional e-commerce site, the department posts pictures and brief descriptions of unclaimed property online. Users can then claim the item by filling out a form and producing proof of ownership before the property is released. |
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| Transportation |
| The University of Michigan has embarked upon the creation of the Mobility Transformation Center, a new initiative to develop vehicle-to-vehicle wireless connections and autonomous driving technologies to stem motor vehicle accidents. The multimillion-dollar facility, which will include an off-road test track that simulates urban density and complexity, has received funding from public agencies such as the Michigan Department of Transportation, as well as private companies such as Ford, General Motors, and Xerox. Other research will include will include fleet performance monitoring, driver behavior, road infrastructure quality, smart parking applications, and data integration. Eventually, connected and automated vehicles could reduce crashes, relieve urban congestion, and cut pollution and energy use. |
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| Data-Smart City Solutions | Big Ideas for Cities: Key Lessons from the National League of Cities Summit |
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The National League of Cities hosted a summit this April in Chicago that called for urban leaders across the country to share innovative policies and programs in pursuit of a better future. If cities continue to approach difficult issues by challenging traditional practices and adapting to contemporary needs, hopefully big ideas will take hold.
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| When Civil Service and Politics Collide |
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New Jersey is fighting over relatively small civil-service reforms. The success of government reforms often depends on who's proposing them.
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| Moving Transportation Projects into the Fast Lane |
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Infrastructure projects are the building blocks of economic development, the foundational investments in our future prosperity. We need to re-engineer the front-end review and approval process to get these projects done — and reap their benefits — much more quickly.
Newsletter produced by: Jessica Engelman, 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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