NEW ORLEANS – The city is going high-tech to battle blight as a new approach to fight one of the city’s biggest problems. The new plan includes getting the public involved to let city officials know about blighted properties and keep track of their progress.
New Orleans has been chosen to take part in a new website tracking project by the non-profit Code of America. Code for America’s goal is to create a website that will make it easier for residents to report and track complaints about neglected and vacant properties.
The team will spend the rest of February talking with city leaders, community groups and technology experts to pinpoint exactly what this website needs to really be effective.
“We're here in New Orleans working with them for the year, specifically on the issue of blight and trying to bring together community groups and the city and kind of clean up some of the data systems and connect people who want to know about this issue with people who actually have the information,” said Serena Wales, a fellow for Code for America.
While it will be several months before people actually get to use the website, officials from Code for America say the goal is to have the tracking software up and running by the end of November.
“I think Code for America chose it for a city because it had a very specific idea of what it wanted to work on, and I think it had people in the administration that are really moving forward,” said Wales.
