Results for Amer­i­ca and Bloomberg Phil­an­thropies rec­og­nized four U.S. cities for their use of data to improve city ser­vices and civic engage­ment. Accord­ing to an arti­cle by Ysabelle Kempe in Smart Cities Dive, “The cities new­ly cer­ti­fied through the What Works Cities Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram are Dal­las; Boise, Ida­ho; Issaquah, Wash­ing­ton; and Sug­ar Land, Texas, along with five cities in Latin Amer­i­ca.”

The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion acknowl­edges cities that have effec­tive­ly put data tools to use to inform pol­i­cy deci­sions. “For exam­ple, Issaquah used data to con­nect those expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness with resources and shared data with local busi­ness­es to help reduce bur­glar­ies and theft. Boise used data at dozens of com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings to engage res­i­dents in its deci­sion to build a new water treat­ment facil­i­ty.”

Mean­while, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) is chang­ing what data can do — and forc­ing cities to think about how to orga­nize data and con­nect with res­i­dents. “Among the cities [Rochelle Haynes, man­ag­ing direc­tor of What Works Cities Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion] works with, she sees the most excite­ment for AI around chat­bots that can help res­i­dents con­nect with gov­ern­ment ser­vices as well as to bet­ter under­stand traf­fic flow.”