Reforms needed for open city data

A major white paper on the state of smart city governance, which looked at 36 member cities of the G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance, finds that while open data is "perhaps the only area in which most cities in the sample have achieved a level of basic implementation", there are still big obstacles to realizing its potential. "Only 15 per cent of the pioneer cities have integrated their open data portals with their wider city data infrastructure".

A number of persistent obstacles are cited, included a low level of trust in data platforms which hinders collaboration, and an inability to demonstrate business or social value. Furthermore, while the group's model open data policy specifies that cities should "undertake periodic assessments of data availability, quality, interoperability and discoverability" on prioritized data sets, only one-third do so.

The report concludes with a set of very general recommendations for raising awareness and dialogue around these governance gaps, which suggests slow and uncertain progress in the years to come.