Honolulu Tops 2011 Digital Cities Survey 35
First time accepted submitter folsomfella writes "The 11th annual survey spotlights the municipalities that best show how information and communication technology are used to enhance public service. The top 10 cities are selected in four different population categories and judged on the criteria of enterprise applicability or impact across multiple program areas, measurable progress from the prior year, hard dollar savings or soft dollar benefits as a result of technology use, innovation and a demonstration of effective collaboration."
I wish we had free city-wide wifi here... (Score:3)
Re:I wish we had free city-wide wifi here... (Score:4, Interesting)
Everything is expensive as it's either shipped in or flown in. It's a very liberal state and as such, taxes are quite high so that doesn't help either. Hawaii was gorgeous and incredible to visit, but I certainly wouldn't want to live there.
As an aside, Honolulu is a beautiful city on the surface, at least for the first block or two in from the ocean. Though the city is full of drug dealers/users, hookers and bums/homeless, all of which are conspicuously plentiful even in the beachfront/resort area right on the water. This did not detract from enjoying my vacation for the few days I was staying in Honolulu but the particularly aggressive hookers were annoying when out at night. Strangely the bums were not aggressive or rude as they are in every New England or east coast city I've been in. On a side note, if I ever failed completely at life and became a homeless bum, I would find my way to Honolulu. Bums seem to live alright lives in an amazingly beautiful and temperate area. At sunset they swarm the beaches and put up hammocks and cots to sleep in the open salty air.
Re: (Score:3)
As a current resident of Honolulu, I have to respond to some of this.
First taxes are not very high compared to mainland states. According to the Tax Foundation Hawaii has the 30th highest taxes in the nation (out of 50 obviously). http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/topic/24.html [taxfoundation.org]
Second, there are a lot of homeless in Hawaii. The primary cause of this is high home prices. A home in a "bad" neighborhood will cost $300k-600k, in a "good" neighborhood they go from $500k-$900k, and in the "rich" neighborhoods the
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Not enough IT Jobs to matter (Score:1)
Hawaii has a dearth of IT jobs. I left there for Seattle, never looked back.
What's the downside? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Rich college douchebags from Michigan and Dubai, get the fuck out.
That's an interesting coalition right there...
Dumb-fuck Christian military savages from Texas and Mississippi, get the fuck out.
This does annoy me too. Why conservatives move here is beyond me.
Anybody who was not born in this state, get the fuck out. We're sick of you polluting our culture and driving our living costs through the roof!
Having met people from LA, that's a good thing. Anyway, I'm on my way out, though not because of this post.
Re: (Score:2)
Honolulu Tops 2011 Digital Cities Survey....... (Score:5, Insightful)
.... in the United States.
Not an unbiased survey, very anti-public wifi (Score:1)
The organization that funded this survey is dedicated to promoting interaction between private business and government. So don't expect to see any cities with their own municipal broadband. Only cities with privately provided wifi are welcome.
For government services... (Score:2)
...but not for regular residents. Been here since 2004. The free wifi hot spots are primarily concentrated in downtown, and a few other random spots. You can see the network map at http://p2.meraki.com/network/kokuawireless ; I wouldn't call this "municipal" wifi in the slightest, seeing as it doesn't really serve anyone except the businesses that have customers coming in or nearby.
In addition, our primary ISPs, Oceanic Time Warner and Hawaiian Telcom are only now offering speeds of 50 mbps down to resid
Booming industry... (Score:1)
They did it to handle all the birth certificate requests
Great Place To Live Hard Place To Make A Living (Score:1)
I was born and raised in Hawaii, went from Molokai, to Maui, then to Oahu. Making money is hard there, technical opportunities exist, but they are hard to come by. So in 1999 I moved to Seattle where I got to work on a High Performance Linux cluster, was part in a startup aerospace company, and now find myself doing virtualization in a government entity.
Recently, a former coworker at the State of Hawaii asked me to go to Honolulu and help with a CentOS 3 to CentOS 5 migration, during that time he told ab
Not a big surprise (Score:2)
Honalulu is unique in that it's very isolated and its distinct native population rather underprivileged, I'm not surprised that free city-wide wifi is provided and done well. However I wouldn't say it's a testament to their skills or benevolence as the distinction may suggest.
An example where a city has gone to great lengths to provide for their residents is the city that hosts the team with the longest waiting list for season tickets in all of professional sports in North America - the reigning NFL champs