There's an ap for that...

There's a neat article on CNN.com today about new methods for letting your local officials know about problems like potholes and late buses.

We've had 311 for a while in the 'Burgh, and I have used it several times. Although I can't say that my phone calls directly resulted in a problem being fixed, at least I did speak to an actual person every time. 311, in case you haven't heard of it, is the number you call to report non-criminal problems. Pittsburgh was also recently featured for the iBurgh app which allows users to take photos of problems and send them to the mayor's office, notable because it was the first city to develop something like this. (The CNN article neglected to mention Pittsburgh as a forerunner on this issue, shame on them.)

But does making complaining easier really help with anything?

According to the CNN article: "Instead of people saying, 'Well, it's the government's job to fix that' ... people are taking ownership and saying, 'Hey, wait a minute. Government is us. We are government. So let's take a responsibility and start changing things ourselves.' "

I disagree...I think this basically just causes a bunch of people running around thinking that they HAVE done something about a problem. Reporting it is truly only the first step.