A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative, and Distributed Governance

by Stephen Goldsmith, Neil Kleiman

Proposing an entirely new governance model to unleash innovation throughout local government

At a time when trust is dropping precipitously and American government at the national level has fallen into a state of long-term, partisan-based gridlock, local government can still be effective--indeed more effective and even more responsive to the needs of its citizens. Based on decades of direct experience and years studying successful models around the world, the authors of this intriguing book propose a new operating system (O/S) for cities. Former mayor and Harvard professor Stephen Goldsmith and New York University professor Neil Kleiman suggest building on the giant leaps that have been made in technology, social engagement, and big data.

Calling their approach "distributed governance," Goldsmith and Kleiman offer a model that allows public officials to mobilize new resources, surface ideas from unconventional sources, and arm employees with the information they need to become pre-emptive problem solvers. This book highlights lessons from the many innovations taking place in today's cities to show how a new O/S can create systemic transformation.

For students of government, A New City O/S: The Power of Distributed Governance presents a groundbreaking strategy for rethinking the governance of cities, marking an important evolution of the current bureaucratic authority-based model dating from the 1920s. More important, the book is designed for practitioners, starting with public-sector executives, managers, and frontline workers. By weaving real-life examples into a coherent model, the authors have created a step-by-step guide for all those who would put the needs of citizens front and center. Nothing will do more to restore trust in government than solutions that work. A New City O/S: The Power of Distributed Governance puts those solutions within reach of those public officials responsible for their delivery.

Genres: Urbanism

224 pages, Paperback

Published November 28, 2017

Reviews

[Zach · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book would have benefited from a good editor. The writing is clunky, and attempts at humor fall flat. At least half of every chapter is spent repeating the same lines about leveraging smartphones, busting data silos, Progressive Era legacies, and the future impact of IoT sensors. Additionally, it doesn't make sense to me why anyone writing a book in 2017 would abbreviate operating system as O/S when every tech company, journalist, and geek on the planet uses OS. Since this rogue abbreviation appears 155 times, readers never forget that the authors are out of touch with the Silicon Valley-esque management techniques they seek to emulate. The best parts of this book are when Goldsmith shares his own experiences as mayor and deputy mayor, but these are few and far between (with the exception of the last chapter). Beyond that, this book does give a couple dozen examples of cities embracing new technology, although only a subset of those examples truly represent enterprise level innovation (i.e. governance itself).

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful, but highly optimistic. Asking human kind to change is going to be hard, though if city management did take this point of view (a user centric approach to designing interactions with government), things would be much better.

[Alison Zimmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good stuff but not that readable and a little too Sidewalks Lab-y for me