Results for America— one of the nonprofits that oversees the certifications — announced seven new cities receiving the honor this week. The certifications are a benchmarking program that reward cities for exceptional use of data, with criteria that include using it to inform policy decisions, funding allocations, service improvement, evaluations of program effectiveness and resident engagement. First launched in 2017, this is the first time the program has included cities outside the U.S.
The seven new cities that have earned the certifications are split with two domestic recipients and five international awardees. In the U.S., the new honors went to Carlsbad, Calif., and Charleston, S.C., both of which earned silver-level certifications. Internationally, the certifications went to Buenos Aires and Cordoba, Argentina; Montevideo, Uruguay; and Fortaleza and Mogi das Cruzes, Brazil. Of the group, all of them earned silver, except for Buenos Aires and Fortaleza, both of which earned gold.
Rochelle Haynes, managing director of What Works Cities Certification, said that the response to going international has been tremendous, and that going international makes sense in a world where the problems that cities face are increasingly connected. Challenges in the U.S. — ranging from housing to climate change to health-care access, among others — are the same as those faced in other countries.
By certifying international cities, the program hopes to spotlight the great work being done to address these challenges abroad, work that can be shared and potentially replicated by U.S. cities. Fortaleza, for example, used data-informed solutions to reduce traffic fatalities by 57 percent. That's progress that any city in the world would like to make.
Haynes also said that the program may eventually expand to include European and other world cities too, although that's "very premature right now."
"We're finding that we're high in demand," Haynes said of the certification program. "Even before we opened to Canada and Latin America, we've had international cities that want to take our assessment."
In addition to the seven newly certified cities, seven other cities that had been previously certified achieved higher certification levels, while still seven more cities were recertified at their current levels. The cities moving upward are Chicago; Cincinnati; Henderson, Nev.; San Antonio; Scottsdale, Ariz.; South Bend, Ind.; and Syracuse, N.Y. They've all gone from silver to gold. Meanwhile, staying at the gold certification level are Arlington, Texas; Cambridge, Mass.; Memphis; Seattle; and Washington, D.C.; while staying at the silver level are Bellingham, Wash., and Denver.
All told, 62 cities to date have achieved the What Works Cities Certification distinction.
More about the program, as well as the work that the certified cities are doing, can be found via the What Works Cities website.
