ClearGov Announces New Enhanced Demographics Module

At ClearGov we firmly believe that in order to be truly transparent you need to provide context. Without context numbers can be meaningless, confusing and even misleading.  Citizens who don’t understand the full picture can often misinterpret figures and the factors that are driving budgetary decisions. These misinterpretations can be spread like wildfire through social media and cause headaches for local governments as they must overcome negative publicity and lost trust.

As we listened to our clients it became apparent that we needed to help them better tell a fuller picture. Every community is different and local governments must account for these differences in the services they provide. Helping the public to understand the dynamics that drive their government’s decisions is critical to gaining public support.

With this in mind, ClearGov is excited to announce our new enhanced demographics module. Linked from the “Demographic Snapshot” on a town’s main ClearGov page, this new module contains four key panels:

Population:

Population dynamics play not only an important role from a planning perspective, but also from a day-to-day perspective. For instance, towns that have a large “Daytime Population” have an influx of daily commuters that increase the demands (and expense) of Public Safety services.

Household Type:

Household Types not only play a role in the types of services a municipality must provide, but can also be a key factor to attracting new residents (and increasing the tax base).

Economic:

Income dynamics can drive the needs for additional social services on one end of the spectrum and affect the spending power of the schools, for example, on the other end of the spectrum.

Housing:

Home value trends play a key role in attracting new residents and increasing the tax base.

Click here for a live example of this new page.

This new module is now included with ClearGov Premier, our enhanced communications platform available to all municipalities in Massachusetts, California and New York.