Open City

Name

Open City

Legal name

Open City

Website

https://opencityapps.org

Company type

Private

Operating status

Closed

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Civic Technology / Open Government Data Applications

NAICS

Administration of Housing Programs, Urban Planning, and Community Development (9251), Administration of Urban Planning and Community and Rural Development (925120), Executive and Legislative Offices, Combined (92114)

akta.pro primary industry

Public Communications, Transparency & Open Government (BPAIAAAH)

akta.pro secondary industries

Public Transparency Portals & Open Data Reporting (EDADAIAN), Smart Cities & Urban Innovation Programs (Digital Planning, Civic Tech for Cities) (BPAIANAJ), Public Works & Municipal Infrastructure (Streets, Stormwater, Facilities) (BPAIACAF)

Keywords

• Civic technology applications
• Open government data
• Open source civic apps
• Government transparency tools
• Civic data visualization

Headquarters

HQ city

Chicago

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Others, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Free/Open Source Products: All Open City projects are free to use and open source under MIT license. The organization operated as a volunteer group with no revenue model - all apps were provided at no cost to users.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Open City was a volunteer group that created civic web applications with open data to improve government transparency and public understanding in Chicago. The portfolio of 15+ products covers city council legislation tracking, crime mapping, snow plow tracking, zoning exploration, school tier lookup, economic indicator dashboards, and reporting tools for recycling and sewage events. All applications are open source under the MIT license and free to use.

Product overview

Open City was a volunteer group that created civic applications with open data to improve government transparency and public understanding in Chicago. The product portfolio consists of 15 civic web applications spanning government transparency (Chicago Councilmatic, Chicago Lobbyists), public safety (Crime in Chicago, CAPSure, Chicago River sewage alerts), urban development (2nd City Zoning, Edifice, Vacant Building Finder), education access (Chicago Public School Tiers), transportation (Transit Future, ClearStreets, Metra Schedules), and economic indicators (How's Business?, Look at Cook, My Building Doesn't Recycle). All products are open source under the MIT license, built on City of Chicago open data, and typically use Google Maps and Google Fusion Tables for mapping and data visualization. The organization is no longer actively releasing new apps, with some products now maintained by DataMade and others discontinued.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• My Building Doesn't Recycle! Civic registry tool that lets Chicago residents report residential buildings with 5+ units that fail to provide adequate recycling services as required by Chicago law, documenting tenant non-compliance.
• Is there sewage in the Chicago River? Notification service that alerts Chicagoans when the city pumps wastewater into the Chicago River and Lake Michigan during heavy rain or snowmelt events to prevent flooding.
• Chicago Councilmatic Legislative search and subscription platform that allows Chicago residents to search, browse, subscribe to, and comment on Chicago City Council legislation since January 2010. Now maintained by DataMade.
• CAPSure Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy meetings finder that helps residents locate their nearest CAPS beat meeting with the Chicago Police Department to encourage community participation in neighborhood policing.
• 2nd City Zoning Interactive zoning map that lets users find how their building is zoned, locate businesses, and explore zoning patterns throughout Chicago, inspired by SimCity 2000. Now maintained by DataMade.
• Edifice Series of interactive maps exploring Chicago's built environment, including building footprints, violations, demolitions, and new construction data from the City of Chicago.
• How's Business? Economic dashboard tracking Chicago's local economy using open data from City of Chicago, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Woodstock Institute, showing economic trends since 2005 including unemployment, building permits, business licenses, consumer spending, and housing price index.
• Crime in Chicago Data visualization tool for exploring crime trends across Chicago's 50 wards, using open crime data released by the Chicago Police Department.
• ClearStreets Snow plow tracking application that uses City of Chicago Plow Tracker data to show which streets have been plowed during winter weather events. Featured in Google's Fusion Tables Example Gallery. Now maintained by DataMade.
• Chicago Lobbyists Open government transparency tool improving visibility into interactions between the City of Chicago and lobbyists and their clients, using the city's lobbying data.
• Vacant and Abandoned Building Finder Tool for finding vacant and abandoned buildings in Chicago using reports made to the City of Chicago's 311 reporting service, regularly updated from city data.
• Look at Cook Easy-to-understand budget visualization for Cook County IL tracking government budgets and expenditures from 1993-2011, broken down by year and department. Developed in collaboration with Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey. Featured in Google's Fusion Tables Example Gallery.
• Chicago Public School Tiers Interactive tool that helps Chicago parents determine their CPS socio-economic tier (1-4) based on census tract data, used for selective school enrollment decisions. Built with jQuery, Google Maps, and Google Fusion Tables. No longer maintained after CPS added tiers to its official School Locator app in 2016.
• Transit Future Interactive map explaining the Transit Future campaign to build new rail lines in Cook County through a dedicated local revenue stream. Currently inactive.
• Metra Schedules Visualization of Metra's proposed 2012 service cuts due to high operating costs and their impact on rider schedules.

Named customers3 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• DataMadecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDataMade now maintains several Open City projects including Chicago Councilmatic, 2nd City Zoning, and ClearStreets. DataMade was founded by former Open City contributors.
• Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborated on Transit Future project
• Cook County Commissioner John FritcheyminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerDeveloped Look at Cook budget visualization in collaboration with Commissioner Fritchey

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights2 records

Broad incumbents

• Granicus: Vendor of government-focused digital communications, legislation tracking, and open data tools for municipalities — overlaps Open City's Councilmatic and open-data use cases as a commercial incumbent.
• OpenGov: Commercial SaaS vendor offering budgeting, transparency, and open-data platforms for state and local governments — directly adjacent value proposition (government transparency and open data) with a scaled paid product.
• US Digital Service (USDS): Federal civic technology team that modernizes government's digital services and uses open data — comparable mission of building public-interest technology inside and adjacent to government.
• Code for America: Nonprofit civic tech organization that supported local Brigades (including the Chicago Brigade that spawned Open City) and operates large-scale government service modernization programs — broader scale and scope but directly comparable mission.
• 18F (GSA): Federal civic tech consultancy inside GSA that builds digital services for public agencies — broader institution with directly overlapping technologies (open data, transparency tooling) and use cases.

Others

• Socrata (Tyler Technologies): Open data and civic data platform used by many municipalities (including powering some Chicago open data efforts) — a data infrastructure provider adjacent to the layer Open City's apps sit on top of.

Direct peers

• DataMade: Civic technology firm founded by former Open City contributors that now maintains Open City projects including Chicago Councilmatic, 2nd City Zoning, and ClearStreets — operating in the same Chicago civic data niche with a paid-services model.
• Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT): Chicago-based nonprofit that collaborated on the Transit Future project with Open City — comparable mission on urban sustainability and transit/built environment transparency in Chicago.
• Smart Chicago Collaborative: Chicago civic tech non-profit that provided EC2 hosting for ClearStreets and serves as a peer Chicago open data / civic innovation partner; overlapping agenda of digital inclusion and civic transparency in the same city.
• BetaNYC: NYC volunteer civic technology group — a New York City parallel to Open City's Chicago open-data volunteer model, focused on local civic apps and open government data.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/opencityapps
• GitHubgithub.com/open-city
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/alexkahn

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Open City