Cities are at the cutting edge of the future of government — here’s why

Hollie Russon-Gilman wrote for Apolitical about how urban governance can empower communities, citing Chayenne Polimedio and Elena Souris.

New York City’s ballot initiatives reflect feedback from a series of public meetings. It demonstrates a promising model of how community feedback can become integrated into bureaucratic structures to support community members.

Local government is finding new ways to engage residents, incorporating human-centred design and evidence-based decision-making. For example, the Philadelphia Participatory Design Lab, which colleagues Chayenne Polimedio, Elena Souris and I have been researching with support from the Knight Foundation, has been able to engage residents more effectively in policy formation and design through pilots with the Department of Revenue and Office of Homeless Services.

For example, since the Department of Revenue is legally bound to send most communication through the mail, the Design Lab (which places fellows into City Hall) implemented a simple A/B testing model where different versions of the same message were sent to randomly assigned groups of addresses. As a result, they have more data on which types of messages will resonate with residents. This is especially important when these messages have large consequences for people.