This morning I was reviewing a saved view on the City of Chicago data portal for restaurant inspections conducted by the Chicago Department of Public Health based on a suspected food poisoning. I used a feature of Socrata, the software used in the portal, that
The Local Inspector Value-Entry Specification (LIVES) is an effort by Yelp, Code for America, and the City and County of San Francisco to establish a standard for the sharing of restaurant inspection results across jurisdictions. This standard, called allows websites like Yelp to display inspection records along with other information like user comments. Here’s an example restaurant inspection for a San Francisco restaurant made available via compliance with the LIVES standard:
Only San Francisco and Louisville (here’s their raw data) have adopted this standard and have implemented the LIVES standard and have them implemented on Yelp. Here’s an example of a Louisville inspection page (notice that there is very little metadata about the restaurant on this page so as to not mess up search engine results):
This is an important development in civic hacking because it points the way to a world where urban data is fluid and easy to repurpose in a wide array of apps and services. Notwithstanding the great progress we’ve made in the publication of government data, we still live in an app ecosystem where one-off apps rule.
The participation of a huge website like Yelp is critical to the standards being adopted. If there is no value provided to real people, there’s no reason to go through technical gymnastics to format and publish information in specific ways. In a January 2013 blog post, Now on Yelp: Restaurant Inspection Scores [UPDATED], Yelp CEO Jeffrey Stoppleman put it this way:
While ratings and reviews are incredibly powerful ways to guide spending decisions, we’re always looking for new ways to supplement the information to provide a better experience for consumers.
Years ago at EveryBlock, we showed restaurant inspection data from various cities and had to create custom processes for scraping and displaying this info on various city websites.
This is a time-consuming, hand-made activity with several possible break points, leading to a brittle system and making it difficult to scale the feature nationally and present a smooth user experience. (I dare you to try to follow this post from the Microsoft Business Intelligence blog on how to browse inspections in their homebase of King County, WA)
18. NO EVIDENCE OF RODENT OR INSECT OUTER OPENINGS PROTECTED/RODENT PROOFED, A WRITTEN LOG SHALL BE MAINTAINED AVAILABLE TO THE INSPECTORS –
Comments: OBSERVED OVER 100 SMALL DRAIN FLIES IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS THROUGHOUT ESTABLISHMENT WITH THE MAJORITY BEING AT THE FLOOR DRAIN OF THE TWO COMPARTMENT PREP SINK, AT THE DRY FOOD STORAGE, AT THE TOGO CONTAINER STORAGE, IN THE DISH ROOM, AT THE REAR LINEN/TRASH CANS STORAGE, IN THE FAR REAR STORAGE AND ALONG THE WALLS OF THE EXTERIOR WALK-IN COOLER. ONE RECENT PEST CONTROL SERVICE FOR THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER ON 9-10-13. LAST SERVICE ON 8-13-13. INSTRUCTED TO HAVE PEST CO. SERVICE AS OFTEN AS NEEDED FOR DRAIN FLIES AND REMOVE ALL MOIST ORGANIC MATERIALS AND CLEAN ALL POSSIBLE BREEDING AREAS TO ELIMINATE OR MINIMIZE THE FLY ACTIVITY. SERIOUS CITATION ISSUED 7-38-020. |
33. FOOD AND NON-FOOD CONTACT EQUIPMENT UTENSILS CLEAN, FREE OF ABRASIVE DETERGENTS –
Comments: EXTERIOR COOKS LINE EQUIPMENT WITH EXCESSIVE GREASE AND FOOD DEBRIS. MUST CLEAN AND MAINTAIN. |
34. FLOORS: CONSTRUCTED PER CODE, CLEANED, GOOD REPAIR, COVERING INSTALLED, DUST-LESS CLEANING METHODS USED –
Comments: METAL FLOOR OF WALK-IN COOLER BUCKLED, IN POOR REPAIR WITH OPEN GAPS/SEAMS COLLECTING FOOD DEBRIS. MUST REPAIR/REPLACE TO MAKE SMOOTH AND CLEANABLE. |
30. FOOD IN ORIGINAL CONTAINER, PROPERLY LABELED: CUSTOMER ADVISORY POSTED AS NEEDED –
Comments: ALL BULK FOODS MUST BE LABELED. |
35. WALLS, CEILINGS, ATTACHED EQUIPMENT CONSTRUCTED PER CODE: GOOD REPAIR, SURFACES CLEAN AND DUST-LESS CLEANING METHODS –
Comments: MISSING WALL BASEBOARD COVING UNDER DISH ROOM THREE COMPARTMENT SINK AND WALL AT ENTRANCE/EXIT TO LINEN STORAGE ROOM IN POOR REPAIR WITH OPEN GAP/HOLE. MUST REPAIR ALL. |
36. LIGHTING: REQUIRED MINIMUM FOOT-CANDLES OF LIGHT PROVIDED, FIXTURES SHIELDED –
Comments: MUST PROVIDE LIGHT SHIELD THROUGHOUT DISH ROOM.