Did you know that “Chicago has the best, the best, open government community in the world”?

That’s according to Tom Schenk, director of analytics for Chicago’s Department of Technology and Innovation, as quoted in a WBEZ news article from yesterday.

His emphatic  enthusiasm is telling, and rightly so, because in the past two years under Rahm Emanuel’s commitment to open government and Big Data, the City has released countless data records for public use. What’s more, a group of volunteer civic hackers, organized under the title Open City, gather weekly for hack nights in order to create apps hosting this publicly accessibly data that will “improve transparency and citizen understanding of our government” (per the mission stated on their website).

And in addition to this work already being done, Chicago recently won a $1 million prize in the Mayors Challenge from Bloomberg Philanthropies to build the SmartData Platform, a real-time analytics tool that will help City Hall use an efficient, productive decisionmaking process when addressing urban challenges.   

The open government movement has a large following in Chicago, and it seems the city is setting a precedent for the rest of the country to release data and make government more accountable to its citizens. The WBEZ article from Elliot Ramos provides a great overview of the Chicago movement. Whether you’re new to the open gov/big data initiative or an old pro, the article is a great read detailing not only the Emanuel Administration’s commitment to transparency in pairing civic-minded residents with the necessary tools to improve the way government works, but also touching on the project’s shortcomings and limitations.