Naperville Launches City Data Portal

NAPERVILLE, IL — The City of Naperville today launched Open Data Naperville, an online portal that provides the public with raw, high-quality, relevant data in addition to a dashboard monitoring the City’s progress towards long-term performance management goals. The site can be accessed at http://data.naperville.il.us.

The launch of Open Data Naperville is a milestone of the City’s continued partnership with What Works Cities, an initiative that works with governments to enhance the use of data and evidence in the public sector. The goal of the City’s open data program is to make the City’s data easily available to the public to help improve service delivery; increase transparency and access to public information; and enhance coordination and efficiency among departments, partner organizations and residents.

“While new to Naperville, the concept of open data has been around for a while and is gaining traction around the world,” said Deputy City Manager Marcie Schatz. “The open data portal provides increased transparency to the public through access to actual data that can be analyzed and used by anyone. We look forward to continuing to add data and stories to this site over the coming weeks, months and years as we work toward making this a comprehensive open data and performance management portal.”

The new site contains nearly 30 datasets, including all of the City’s GIS maps and information about building permits, debt service, public safety incidents, budgets and more. Beyond simple downloadable spreadsheets, the site allows viewers to engage with the data, creating interesting visualizations – like maps, charts and graphs – that may be embedded into other websites. The City will continue to release additional datasets as they become available.

By making data machine readable and easily accessible, the City hopes to spur innovation among internal and external audiences and encourage the conversation and analysis of the City’s performance. Open Data Naperville allows citizens to delve further into the steps the City is taking to achieve its strategic goals in the areas of High Performing Government, Public Safety, Financial Stability and Economic Development.

“We’re excited to have this forum to better explain to citizens the City’s long-term vision behind our initiatives, with explanations and supporting data to offer greater context than ever before,” Schatz said.

Submitted by the City of Naperville