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| Recycling |
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Starting October 1, 2014, Massachusetts will require that food waste from supermarkets, hospitals, universities, and other institutions that produce more than a ton of food waste a week be collected, recycled, or repurposed, not landfilled. This ambitious policy will result in food waste either being diverted into compost, animal food, or biomass energy production or redirected to soup kitchens and food banks. Policymakers note that landfilling organic matter contributes to greenhouse gas accumulation and that landfill space is becoming more expensive as it reaches capacity. The state has been helping large institutions prepare for the food waste ban over the last several years.
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| Policing and Crime Prevention |
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Police dogs in New England are being trained to sniff out child pornography as state police in Connecticut and Rhode Island fight back against a growing network of traffickers. For example, in Rhode Island, police have trained one golden Labrador to find hard drives, thumb drives and other tech devices; the dog helped locate a thumb drive hidden four layers deep in a tin box inside a metal cabinet. Rhode Island and Connecticut are reportedly the only two states that use dogs to sniff out computer memory during searches.
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| Cultural Preservation |
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In an effort to help Los Angeles understand and record its historic resources amidst growing changes due to redevelopment, periodic natural disasters, and other regional forces, the city has unveiled SurveyLA — the Los Angeles Historic Resources Survey. In the past few years, the comprehensive program, which is being piloted in Los Angeles and involves architecture historians and other preservationists documenting neighborhood areas, has been using open-source software from the Getty Conservation Institute and employing 200 themes and sub-themes to develop guidelines for what qualifies as historic. The goal is to create a tool to help planners and lawmakers in developing future city plans, launch a searchable archive for interested users, and provide a template for other cities.
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| Adult & Continuing Education |
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This summer, the Sacramento Public Library is offering scholarships of $1,200 to eligible adults to help them get their high school diploma at library branches or online at home. Along with instruction in core academic subjects, the program will pair each student with an academic coach who will assist in developing an individual career plan, offer ongoing guidance, and evaluate performance. The Los Angeles Public Library began a similar program earlier this year.
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| Emergency Response |
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To augment and speed their first response capabilities to cases of cardiac arrest, a growing number of localities, including Santa Clara County, California, are using PulsePoint, an app created by the nonprofit PulsePoint Foundation that uses location-based technology, and is tied into a city’s 911 dispatch system, to alert CPR-trained citizens if someone in their immediate area is experiencing cardiac arrest. Those nearby residents and bystanders then have the opportunity to decide to begin resuscitation until official help arrives. By mobilizing help early, victims may have a greater chance of survival.
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| City Finances and the Promise of Data Visualization |
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New tools that make it easy to find and view government financial data are enabling big gains in efficiency and transparency. Financial data visualization is enhancing the ability of local governments to be more responsive to citizens' needs.
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| Institutionalizing Innovation in Philadelphia |
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Philadelphia recently inaugurated its new Innovation Lab, a technology-enabled space that will house parts of the city’s Academy of Municipal Innovation curriculum, serve as a nexus for civic innovation, and offer programming for Philly’s youth. We spoke with Philadelphia’s managing director and deputy mayor about the launch of the lab.
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| 'Pay for Success': a Better Way to Deliver Social Services? |
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Our government culture too often focuses on inputs, such as how much money is spent on a program, rather than on the outcomes it produces. The pay-for-success approach is worthwhile not least because it demands that organizations engage in a goal-setting exercise. In addition, the idea of shifting the risk of failed initiatives from taxpayers to investors is catching on.
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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