I was planning today to write today about the positive press Monterey County received upon launching their restaurant inspection web site. This is an important milestone for any health department as it increases customer service and promotes transparency. Congratulations Monterey County Health Department!
In the same breath, the City of San Francisco announced DataSF.org Beta, a portal for a range of data (including meta-data).
From the press release:
The new web site will provide a clearinghouse of structured, raw and machine-readable government data to the public in an easily downloadable format. For example, there will be updated crime incident data from the police department and restaurant inspection data from the Department of Public Health. The initial phase of the web site includes more than 100 datasets, from a range of city departments, including Police, Public Works, and the Municipal Transportation.
We imagine creative developers taking apartment listings and city crime data and mashing it up to help renters find their next home or an iPhone application that shows restaurant ratings based on health code violations.
It’s a little rough around the edges now, but the concept is a cool one… don’t you think?
Hey Darryl,
The link to SFData resolves to this: http://decadesoftware.typepad.com/darrylbooth/www.datasf.org
But probably should be:
http://www.datasf.org
Posted by: Buck | October 27, 2009 at 10:46 PM