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Transforming city government: a case study of Philly311

Authors:

Theresa A. PardoAuthors Info & Claims

ICEGOV '12: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance

Pages 310 - 319

https://doi.org/10.1145/2463728.2463787

Published: 22 October 2012 Publication History

Abstract

This paper describes the transformation of a city government led by a 311 program, which provides a consolidated channel for non-emergency services and information. The paper first discusses the concept of "smart city" as a foundation for the examination of the 311 program as a practice of government innovation. The paper then presents the details of the 311 program as instantiated in the City of Philadelphia. In-depth interviews with Philadelphia City government officials and managers responsible for creating and operating the City's 311 system (Philly311) offer insights into the contributions the system is making to a more efficient, effective, transparent, accountable, and collaborative city government. Performance data provided by Philly311 enables more efficient resource allocation and informed decision making. Philly311 is credited with making the process of service delivery more transparent to the public, and providing traceability of requested services which imbues service departments with a sense of accountability. Service level agreements are providing measurable standards of municipal services and are used to support accountability in terms of service status. Regular reviews of service level agreements and content of the system are also recognized as promoting interdepartmental collaboration. 311 systems are broadly recognized as powerful tools to engage residents in improving their neighborhoods. Institutionalizing interdepartmental collaborations emerged from the interviews as a critical capability in advancing from the initiation stage of Philly311-like systems to operations and refinement.

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Cited By

N.L. Stowers G(2021)Back to Basics: City Services and 311 Service RequestsState and Local Government Review10.1177/0160323X21106425354:1(13-31)Online publication date: 8-Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.1177/0160323X211064253
Gordon EMugar G(2020)Meaningful Inefficiencies10.1093/oso/9780190870140.001.0001Online publication date: 20-Feb-2020
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190870140.001.0001
Jeffares SJeffares S(2020)Can I Speak to a Human? Automating Remote Contact in Frontline Public ServiceThe Virtual Public Servant10.1007/978-3-030-54084-5_5(97-124)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2020
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54084-5_5
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Transforming city government: a case study of Philly311
1. Information systems
  1. Information systems applications

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Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

ICEGOV '12: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance

October 2012

547 pages

ISBN:9781450312004

DOI:10.1145/2463728

Conference Chairs:
David Ferriero
National Archives and Records Administration
,
Theresa Pardo
University at Albany
,
Haiyan Qian
UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs
,
Editors:
J. Ramon Gil-Garcia
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico
,
Natalie Helbig
Center for Technology in Government, SUNY, United States
,
Adegboyega Ojo
United Nations University, Macao

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

Macao Foundation, Macao SAR Govt: Macao Foundation, Macao SAR Government
University at Albany - State University of New York: University at Albany - State University of New York

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 22 October 2012

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Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

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ICEGOV '12

Sponsor:

Macao Foundation, Macao SAR Govt
University at Albany - State University of New York

ICEGOV '12: 6th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance

October 22 - 25, 2012

New York, Albany, USA

Acceptance Rates

ICEGOV '12 Paper Acceptance Rate 23 of 98 submissions, 23%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 350 of 865 submissions, 40%

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Cited By

N.L. Stowers G(2021)Back to Basics: City Services and 311 Service RequestsState and Local Government Review10.1177/0160323X21106425354:1(13-31)Online publication date: 8-Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.1177/0160323X211064253
Gordon EMugar G(2020)Meaningful Inefficiencies10.1093/oso/9780190870140.001.0001Online publication date: 20-Feb-2020
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190870140.001.0001
Jeffares SJeffares S(2020)Can I Speak to a Human? Automating Remote Contact in Frontline Public ServiceThe Virtual Public Servant10.1007/978-3-030-54084-5_5(97-124)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2020
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54084-5_5
Charalabidis YTheocharopoulou C(2019)A Participative Method for Prioritizing Smart City Interventions in Medium-Sized MunicipalitiesInternational Journal of Public Administration in the Digital Age10.4018/IJPADA.20190101036:1(41-63)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2019
https://doi.org/10.4018/IJPADA.2019010103
Antonova A(2019)Introduction to Digital Transformation in Era 4.0Institutional and Organizational Transformations in the Robotic Era10.4018/978-1-5225-6270-2.ch001(1-26)Online publication date: 2019
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-6270-2.ch001
Hartmann SRodríguez Bolívar MAlcaide Muñoz L(2018)Citizen Relationship Management for Civic Participation: How Smart Cities use 311 to Involve CitizensE-Participation in Smart Cities: Technologies and Models of Governance for Citizen Engagement10.1007/978-3-319-89474-4_4(59-77)Online publication date: 2-Aug-2018
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89474-4_4
Asad MLe Dantec CMark GFussell SLampe Cschraefel mHourcade JAppert CWigdor D(2017)Tap the "Make This Public" ButtonProceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3025453.3026034(6304-6316)Online publication date: 2-May-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3025453.3026034
Thomas VWang DMullagh LDunn N(2016)Where’s Wally? In Search of Citizen Perspectives on the Smart CitySustainability10.3390/su80302078:3(207)Online publication date: 26-Feb-2016
https://doi.org/10.3390/su8030207
Pereira GTesta MMacadar MParycek Pde Azambuja L(2016)Building understanding of municipal operations centers as smart city' initiativesProceedings of the International Conference on Electronic Governance and Open Society: Challenges in Eurasia10.1145/3014087.3014110(19-30)Online publication date: 22-Nov-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3014087.3014110
Macadar MLheureux-de-Freitas Jde Azambuja LLuciano E(2016)Contact Center in a Smart Cities ViewProceedings of the 9th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance10.1145/2910019.2910063(215-222)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2910019.2910063
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