HOUSTON — Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, often mentioned as a potential 2020 presidential candidate, visited Houston Wednesday to discuss how data-driven governance can improve city services through collaboration between municipalities and universities.
O’Malley spoke at the Kinder Institute Urban Research Forum in the Brown Auditorium of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The event focused on practical, data-informed approaches to urban challenges and the role of university-city partnerships in delivering solutions.
At 54, O’Malley has remained active in public policy since his 2016 presidential bid. He said he has not decided whether to run again — “Not just yet, but I’m keeping an open mind and open heart” — while continuing work that applies data and leadership lessons from his time in office.
These days O’Malley describes himself as a “recovering lawyer.” He teaches Leadership and Data-Driven Government at Boston College and collaborates with the Kinder Institute on the MetroLab Network, a multi-disciplinary, multi-level initiative that connects cities and universities to pilot and scale urban innovations. O’Malley gained recognition for reducing crime and improving public safety in Baltimore by applying geographic information systems (GIS) and other urban data platforms.
“Anything I’ve learned about government, I’ve learned when I was mayor of Baltimore,” he said. O’Malley served as Baltimore’s mayor from 1999 to 2007 and then as Maryland’s 61st governor from 2007 to 2015.
As governor, he expanded the CitiStat performance-management system he first used in Baltimore. CitiStat was awarded “Innovations in Government” by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and became a model for data-driven municipal management.
O’Malley emphasized that cities are natural laboratories for experimentation, citing successes in Baltimore as well as lessons from Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. He noted that Rice University and the city of Houston have joined about 20 other cities and 25 universities nationwide in MetroLab Network, which fosters collaboration on urban infrastructure, public services and civic engagement.
Using GIS and other urban data systems, O’Malley argued, allows leaders to target resources more effectively—whether for public safety, water conservation, or infrastructure priorities such as which bridges to repair or build to improve opportunity for future generations.
Addressing the Kinder forum with humor, O’Malley said he had condensed a long presentation into a tighter set of slides: “I’ve been asked to go deep with this crowd, so I have 492 slides that I’ve narrowed to 60.”
He began with a quote from Robert F. Kennedy to frame his talk: “Each time a man stands up for others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” O’Malley used that image to explain how small, data-informed interventions can accumulate into significant social change: “We can calculate how many tiny ripples it takes to add up to waves of change.”
O’Malley also touched on internal Democratic Party matters. As the party selects new leadership, he announced his endorsement of Pete Buttigieg, the 35-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, for chair of the Democratic National Committee. Buttigieg, a Harvard graduate, U.S. Navy Reserve officer and Rhodes Scholar, was elected mayor at age 30 and has been widely noted as a rising figure in the party.
Feb. 16, 2017 Realty News Report Copyright 2017