In the news

A quick look at news stories this week featuring Bloomberg Cities’ programs and partners.

Town hall meetings? That system is broken. There are better ways for citizens and public officials to learn from each other and solve problems together. (Governing)

Philadelphia and Denver are the latest U.S. cities to embrace Vision Zero, a campaign aiming at eliminating all traffic fatalities and severe injuries. Both cities launched a crowdsourcing map (Philadelphia map; Denver map) to collect responses directly from residents and analyze community concerns about dangerous streets and road safety. (Next City)

Lewisville, Texas, Miami, Fla., and Minneapolis, Minn., are the latest to join the What Works Cities program with the aim of making data more user-friendly and establishing performance metrics to track city progress in improving people’s lives and creating a safe environment. (The Lewisville Texan Journal, Miami Today, MinneapolisMN.gov)

Olathe, Kan., has introduced a community dashboard to give residents better access to key results indicators in the city, including crime rates, citizen satisfaction rates, and more. (OlatheKS.org)