ref: http://cityforward.org/wps/wcm/connect/cityforward_en_us/city+forward/home

The website features something like a full-body scan of 55 major cities, drawing its data from many varied sources. Want to know about traffic patterns in New York? Living costs in Tokyo? Consumer spending trends in Chicago? It's all there.

A vision of the city as a glistening, well-oiled machine underlies IBM's new website, City Forward, which is officially inaugurated today. The City Forward initiative, which has been revving up for a few months now, collates the massive amount of data relating to cities in one clearinghouse, making it easier to use for those who make or influence city policy.

Put another way: "City Forward substitutes data for intuition," said IBM's Stanley S. Litow in a release.

cont'd....
http://www.fastcompany.com/1733503/data-to-the-people