Not long ago, the City of Tucson opened a SeeClickFix Plus account to help make their city services more transparent, more efficient, and more accessible to their citizens. They got a spiffy new customized app for iPhones, Blackberries, and Android phones and an optimized system for monitoring and directing SeeClickFix issues to their employees.

And they've been loving it! There used to be four links in the chain between the citizen who reported an issue and the employee who went out to fix it; now the two are directly in touch with each other. As you can read in one of our earlier posts on Tucson, the system has been cheaper for the City. Money that had previously been spent on overhead costs is now spent directly on solving the citizens' problems—a fact that bears particular importance in this period of budget shortfalls and service cuts.

Now, a second wave of organizations is beginning to embrace SeeClickFix in Tucson. After implementing SeeClickFix on the metropolitan level, the City has been encouraging community organizations to utilize our tools on a local level as well.

Earlier this month, a newsletter was sent out to 35 neighborhood associations—in Ward 3 alone—encouraging them to make use of SeeClickFix services. Community organizations of all sizes have been making watch areas for themselves and embedding widgets on their web sites.

The way Tucson has embraced SeeClickFix services showcases the beauty of distributed 311 and scalable solutions. Local problems will find straightforward fixes from those who know the area best, and the different levels of authority within the city government can work together more efficiently.