Creating the cabinet-level Chief of Civic Engagement position for Jerome Smith, also the Director of the Office of Neighborhood Services, was a no-brainer. A self-professed tech junkie, Smith has been tasked with building an innovative bridge between Bostonians and their city government in order to proliferate neighborhood engagement. Noting that he owns multiple mobile devices including smartphones and tablets, he couldn’t be more excited for what’s in store for Boston’s neighborhoods thanks to a next-generation approach he’s taking to increase civic engagement.
On September 15, Smith’s staff commenced an 850-mile crusade during which they’ll traverse every inch of Boston’s roadways not only to catalogue and fix infrastructural issues plaguing the city’s various communities, but to get people out of their homes and see how easy and efficient it can be to team up with the municipality in order to accomplish specified goals.
The campaign is called NEW Boston, which is an acronym for Neighborhood Engagement Walks. He and neighborhood coordinators are hoping to cover every neighborhood, street by street and block by block, and create an interactive map so that residents can follow the progress Neighborhood Services, Public Works, Inspectional Services and the Transportation Department are making to improve The Hub.
But success doesn’t just lie within a map of Boston that contains open sourced city data. More than anything, it’s about building a constituency within each neighborhood that’ll benefit them and those around them. That’s Mayor Walsh’s vision for the newly-minted Office of Civic Engagement, and that’s the sentiment Smith is taking to heart.
“The mayor, he came in and wanted to find new ways to engage residents,” Smith told me. “We have really good neighborhood associations and civic organizations already with active residents, but there are a ton of residents who are not part of that group. How do we engage them?”
Rather than continue a tired, antiquated system of having people phone in to City Hall and complain about a various problem only to receive a response in the form of a harsh Boston accent barking at them from the other end with no subsequent notice that a project has been finished, Smith is leading by example, getting his people out on the streets and making them visible to residents while taking advantage of an unlikely partnership between City Hall and fitness startup RunKeeper.
Smith’s neighborhood coordinators began NEW Boston on Monday and have already started collecting data to bring his map idea into fruition. RunKeeper, an app that similarly maps a user’s workout, provided a platform for which Smith’s personnel can track which streets they’ve swept and allow Bostonians to view their progress once it’s uploaded to the city’s website.
Perhaps during days of Boston yore, teaming up with a local startup wouldn’t be the initial thought for undertaking a massive initiative like NEW Boston. But Mayor Marty Walsh has exhibited an extreme commitment to open sourcing data, which allows for startups to not only participate in city endeavors, but also develop other programs and apps that boost civic engagement.
By affording locals the opportunity to view data and interact with it, they gain a confidence in their city knowingly full well that they’re concerns are being listened to being acted upon. Smith is sanguine that this collective confidence in the city will open the door for people to make even the smallest move in taking part, even if it’s just downloading Citizen’s Connect – the app created to let citizens submit a report to city workers of neighborhood issues, whether it be a pothole or graffiti.
“Who ever thought that RunKeeper, which is just a jogging app, would be used by the city to track mapping our staff on the project to upload that data on to websites,” posited Smith.
The system works similar to Citizen’s Connect, in that neighborhood coordinators can take a photo, enter a description and upload a problem they encounter to the map – anything from broken bricks on the sidewalk, to sign repairs, to picking up dead animals off the street.
It’s so detailed that it shows which side of the street a user or coordinator has walked, when they cross over to the other side, and allows them to drop a pin at the exact location of an entry. Once it’s taken care of by the applicable city staffer, a before and after photo will be made available at the pin for people to see that their city is continuously working with them and for them.
Even if the city can’t tackle a problem right away, at least Bostonians can witness them chip away at each entry.
“We’re excited to be part of an initiative like NEW Boston, which naturally takes advantage of the core capabilities of the RunKeeper app to provide a valuable insight into our hometown,” RunKeeper’s chief technology officer Joe Bondi told BostInno in an email. “We hope the use of RunKeeper easily enables NEW Boston team to collect the feedback they need. As a bonus, we love that this enables more people in our hometown to gain a deeper awareness of RunKeeper and how it can fit into their daily lives.”
And while technology is a major facet of Smith’s plans for Boston, he’s abundantly aware that there’s no viable substitute for improving the city’s streets than by rallying the populous to partake. All it takes is a little nudge out the door.
He’s entertained offers from tech companies with Google-esque, camera-strapped vehicles that take photos while driving. That defeats the entire purpose he told me, despite his noted affinity for gadgetry.
“You have to find a hook. These walks are another hook,” he said. “If we just show them how easy it can be for them to be engaged and to engage with the government, I think we’ll get them hooked.”
Nothing would make Smith happier than to see a mob of Bostonians marching down the street, each armed with the mobile device of their choice, snapping photos of what they consider to be a problem for the community and submitting them to the city for further examination.
Even if he just gets five people to join him, the other cabinet-level officials, department heads and neighborhood coordinators, that’s an additional five bodies patrolling the street that likely never would’ve participated in a walk otherwise.
Shaina Aubourg, the neighborhood coordinator for Mission Hill, Smith told me, logged 7.5-miles in one night alone.
“I gave her props for that,” he said proudly of her commitment.
Smith mentioned that the goal for completion of NEW Boston is by the end of the year. As we’ve all felt autumn temperatures begin to veil the city, he knows the throes of winter coming fast on its heels could pose major setbacks for walking and taking on certain projects. Some are weather dependent, after all. Pavement striping won’t adhere under 50 degrees, for example.
It’s about building a constituency within each neighborhood that’ll benefit them and those around them
He’s confident, though, that his team can complete the walk before winter sets in but he’s also balancing that with managing expectations. If or when the weather prohibits him and his personnel from taking on their tasks, at least they’ll have created work orders for the public to see that they’ve taken an inventory and can hit the ground running come the spring thaw.
“The more information you give the public, the better off they are,” added Smith, mirroring Mayor Walsh’s commitment to government transparency.
Good leadership is partially about delegation, so some credit is due for Mayor Walsh tapping Smith for this tailored position. He recognized that Smith is an engagement bulldog, and by letting him off the leash advantageous things are guaranteed to happen.
But Smith is the visionary, and Mayor Walsh has levied a challenge against him to do what’s never been done before. Smith accepted without hesitation and takes pride in being creative in his new role, bound only by the limitations of his imagination. If there even are any.
Though NEW Boston is priority number one, he’s currently looking at generating a litter campaign, city programming for Boston’s young adult and young professional crowd, and throwing any and all ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks.
When I asked him for a personalized definition of the term “civic engagement,” he took a second to gather his thoughts and said with conviction, “just a away to empower residents to be a part of the solution.”
So get out there, Bostonians. Be a part of the solution and help Jerome Smith improve your neighborhood so that the City of Boston as a whole can continue to push the bounds of civic innovation.
See you all on the streets.
