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PSI Group releases Latest Wave of MeGAP Data for Smaller U.S. Cities (100,000-150,000)

The Public Sphere Information Group (PSI Group) has conducted a broad study of electronic government implementation among the largest cities in the United States. The study of cities with populations between 100,000 and 200,000, part of the overall Municipality eGovernment Assessment Project (MeGAP) designed and conducted by the PSI Group, assesses the degree of implementation of services by cities across 55 different functions and services typically provided by municipalities.

WAVE 2 of the national MeGAP is now nearing completion. The PSI Group has released results for U.S. cities over 500,000 (August 2002) in August 2002, for U.S. cities between 200,000 and 500,000 (October 2002) and for U.S. cities between 150,000 and 200,000 (November 2002). At the same time, the PSI Group is also conducting targeted assessments of three U.S. metropolitan regions (see other news articles)

Key findings of the study:

1. Smaller cities have made enormous progress in implementing egovernment. For the most part, smaller US cities have made dramatic improvements to their web-based egovernment offerings, with the leaders among them keeping pace with larger cities. The average summary eScore for the 48 cities with populations between 100,000-150,000 is 53; when Wave I of the MeGAP analysis was conducted (Winter, 2000) the average eScore among similarly-sized cities was 34.5. In Wave II, half of the cities of this size U.S. cities have eScores over 55; in 2001, barely half had scores over 35. In Wave I, only one city in this set had an eScore over 70; in Wave II, 14 cities have crossed this threshold.
2. The most impressive shift between Wave I and Wave II is in baseline quality. In Wave I, many cities were excluded from full assessment by virtue of having either no official website at all or having little more than a home page with very basic information. As a result, on 36 of the 141 cities with populations between 100K-200K were assessed. In the subset of these cities reported here, all but one city had websites, with most having websites that included at least basic interactive functions.
3. In keeping with the trend among the nation's larger cities, the typical medium-sized U.S. city has implemented several features that dramatically improve their egovernment offerings. The majority of U.S. cities with populations between 150-200K have implemented some sort of document management systems, some sort of action request system, and ready access to information on codes, regulations, licenses and permits. Many have automated processes such as permitting, tax lookup, and payments for utilities, taxes and fines. Overall, smaller U.S. cities have far more functional, highly interactive sites that allow a variety of transactions to take place online.
4. Improvements among smaller cities seem to have outpaced those in larger cities on average. Median improvement among the smaller cities reported on here was 118%. Among cities between 150,200, the median improvement was 90%. Among mid-sized cities, it was 88%. Among larger cities, 60%.

The New Rankings

There's been a great deal of change in eScores over the past 18 months:

• Request the entire report.
• What's the MeGAP?
• Check out the emerging MeGAP Best Practices Guide.
• Interested in how your region stacks up? Contact the PSI Group.

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