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How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government
Penguin Press
February 2013
On Sale: February 7, 2013
272 pages
ISBN: 1594204721
EAN: 9781594204722
Kindle: B008EKMC9K
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
A rallying cry for revolutionizing democracy in the digital
age, Citizenville reveals how ordinary Americans can reshape
their government for the better. Gavin Newsom, the
lieutenant governor of California, argues that today’s
government is stuck in the last century while—in both the
private sector and our personal lives—absolutely everything
else has changed. The explosion of social media, the
evolution of Internet commerce, the ubiquity of smart phones
that can access all the world’s information; in the face of
these extraordinary advances, our government appears
increasingly irrelevant and out of touch. Drawing on wide-ranging interviews with thinkers and
politicians, Newsom’s Citizenville shows how Americans can
transform their government, taking matters into their own
hands to dissolve political gridlock even as they produce
tangible changes in the real world. When local Web designers
wanted to prevent muggings in Chicago and Oakland, they
created innovative crime-mapping tools using public police
data. When congressional representatives wanted citizens’
input on new legislation, they used interactive blogging
tools to invite public comments and changes. When a town in
Texas needed to drum up civic engagement, officials invented
a local digital “currency” to reward citizens for
participating in government—making small-town politics
suddenly as fun and addictive as online games such as
Farmville. Surveying the countless small advances made by
ordinary Americans in reinventing government for the
twenty-first century, Newsom unveils a path for American
prosperity and democratic vitality. Newsom explains how twenty-first-century problems are too
big and too expensive for the government simply to buy
solutions; instead, Americans must innovate their way out.
Just as the post office and the highway system provide
public infrastructure to channel both personal and private
enterprise—a platform upon which citizens can grow—so too
could a modern digital government house the needs, concerns,
information, and collaboration of an enlightened digital
citizenry. A vision for better government that truly achieves the
ancient goal of commonwealth and a triumphant call for
individuals to reinvigorate the country with their own two
hands, Citizenville is a timely road map for restoring
American prosperity and for reinventing citizenship in
today’s networked age.
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