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How Cities Can Measure What Actually Matters

March 4, 2026 · 17 min

Show notes

What does a city government owe its residents? Host Stephen Goldsmith speaks with Eyal Feder-Levy, CEO of Zencity, to explore how GenAI is fundamentally transforming the way cities measure, understand, and respond to resident needs.

For decades, performance management in government has relied on operational metrics like crime numbers, pothole repairs, traffic flow. But what happens when the data looks good, yet residents feel less safe? When efficiency improves, but trust declines?

In this episode, Feder-Levy argues that citizen satisfaction and perception should be the true North Star for city government. Using social sentiment analysis, AI-powered data agents, and real-world examples, he explores how GenAI is cutting response times, revealing hidden patterns, and closing the gap between statistics and lived experience.

Listener Survey: bit.ly/datasmartpod

Music credit: Summer-Man by Ketsa

About Data-Smart City Solutions

Data-Smart City Solutions, housed at the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University, is working to catalyze the adoption of data projects on the local government level by serving as a central resource for cities interested in this emerging field. We highlight best practices, top innovators, and promising case studies while also connecting leading industry, academic, and government officials. Our research focus is the intersection of government and data, ranging from open data and predictive analytics to civic engagement technology. We seek to promote the combination of integrated, cross-agency data with community data to better discover and preemptively address civic problems. To learn more visit us online and follow us on LinkedIn.

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