Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 5.2
E-government
Grades
for
U.S.
States,
2010.
Source
data
from
important influence, as did ethnic homogeneity and local support for policy
innovation.
Similarly, municipal e-government in the U.S. exhibits enormously diverse
variations ranging from non-existence to highly sophisticated digital interactions,
depending on availability of financing, personnel, and leadership. Few cities offer
e-government services beyond the most basic provision of digital forms and
information (Reddick
2004
). Moon (
2002
) suggests that larger cities are more
likely to have e-government portals and to offer a broader array of applications.
The most common forms of local e-government applications include payments of
parking tickets, filing of complaints, and service requests (Lee et al.
2005
). Norris
and Moon (
2005
), however, found that while simple government websites have
become almost universal among U.S. municipalities, the shift toward transactional
ones has been much slower and spatially uneven. A few municipalities (e.g.,
Bakersfield, CA) broadcast city council meetings on the web; some (e.g., Durham,
NC; Scottsdale, AZ; Fort Lauderdale, FL) offer on-line geographical information
systems (GIS) that permit location-based searches and interactive mapping Kaylor
et al. (
2001
).
Canada's first steps toward e-government began in the 1990 s with the launch of
its flagship website, strategis.cn (Allen et al.
2001
; Roy
2006
). The Government
On-line program, launched in 1999, enables electronic access to 130 federal gov-
ernment services, attracting 600 million visits annually. However, as elsewhere, the
implementation of fully developed e-government services ran into a common
conundrum: whereas most neoliberal policy initiatives attempt to promote the
