Redesigning Broken and Legacy Systems to Unlock Innovation with Communities

City leaders want to innovate, but most are stuck solving yesterday's problems with yesterday's tools. Real breakthroughs come from fundamentally changing how governments listen to communities.

Host Stephen Goldsmith speaks with Dr. Francisca Rojas, executive director of the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins, about how technology and design are helping cities understand what residents actually need—and why legacy systems are the real barrier to change.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Savannah used digital mapping to uncover flooding problems FEMA data missed by listening to residents
• Why the Maryland Community Business Compass uses AI to democratize information for small businesses
• How digital twins help communities imagine and approve projects like affordable housing before they're built
• What Baltimore learned by reframing vacant housing as both a rehabilitation problem and a prevention problem

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.