Why Atlanta is taking tiny bits of info very seriously (Columbus: city hall, neighborhood)

[jsvh]

Why Atlanta is taking tiny bits of info very seriously | News Feature | Creative Loafing Atlanta

"City Hall throws its arms around hackers and learns to love data"

"In five to 10 years, what I hope to see is more and more public problems and challenges being solved through private innovation and solutions based on public information," says Farooqui (Atlanta's chief operating officer). "That is not where we are today. That is where the big data movement is advocating for us to go."

[Nanosolar]

GT and GSU are huge assets to this city. Lots of free labor and brain power that the city is finally tapping into.

[Zanarkand A East]

Sounds like the TransportationCamp all over again. Computer science and city planning in the same room for a few hours. That was a fun afternoon!

[arjay57]

From the CL article:

Deep in a wooded ravine on a vacant parcel in Peoplestown sits a mountain of old tires. There's no telling how long they've been sitting there collecting water, breeding mosquitoes, and sullying the property. Or how many there are.

"That's hundreds. At least 200, maybe more," said longtime community activist Columbus Ward as he escorted volunteers from Georgia State University around the neighborhood.

During previous cleanups of illegally dumped tires, Ward and others would simply drive around and note the locations of the eyesores. In recent years, they started working with volunteers to create a spreadsheet filled with the information.

Now, thanks to the GA Tires app built by Georgia State University's Department of Geosciences, they can create a photo-filled database of problem areas with a couple quick taps on their smartphones. They simply pinpoint their location, enter in the number of tires, snap and upload a photo, and press submit. The data is compiled in a database available to residents, police, elected officials — pretty much anyone.

I hate to be a Luddite but if you are driving putting in the location of old tires on your smartphone, why not just take a truck, throw them in the back and haul those suckers off?

Sometimes old school solutions can be quite effective.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by arjay57

From the CL article:



I hate to be a Luddite but if you are driving putting in the location of old tires on your smartphone, why not just take a truck, throw them in the back and haul those suckers off?

Sometimes old school solutions can be quite effective.

Where do you dispose of them? I know every year there is a tire round up where residents list locations of dumped tires and volunteers pick collect and the city disposes of them.
Also, it creates a history of known tire dump locations so someone can keep an eye of that location and hopefully catch the violators.