Culture
The Best City Websites for Online Engagement
Local government sites increasingly embrace social networking, but is it working?
Our cities are tweeting. Of the 75 largest cities in the U.S., 87 percent are using Twitter to engage with their citizens. That's the same percentage that are also active on Facebook.
Before you dismiss these figures as unsurprising, keep in mind that they represent a dramatic jump from just a few years earlier. A recent report [PDF] from researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago compares the websites of the 75 biggest cities in 2009 and 2011. Over that time, Twitter use increased 62 percent, Facebook use by 74 percent and YouTube linking by 59 percent.