Cities are great at collecting data. But it’s what they actually do with that data to make progress on issues and priorities that matters most to residents.

Those that are best at this work are “using data to inform policy and budgeting decisions, evaluate program effectiveness, engage residents, and more,” explains Results for America’s Lauren Su, who directs What Works Cities Certification, a standard of excellence for data-informed, well-managed local government. “They also are developing new ways of working that other cities can learn from.”

As What Works Cities and Bloomberg Philanthropies add seven new cities to the group of certified cities, now 62 strong, we take a look at some of the data practices that make these cities stand out and, more importantly, can be emulated by others looking to follow their lead.

Data visualization capabilities are changing the way cities engage residents and empower them with intelligence that might, otherwise, look like nothing more than numbers on a page. Through graphical representation of data, city leaders can improve communication with the people they serve, advance government transparency, and even speed service delivery.

That’s exactly what Buenos Aires (newly certified Gold by What Works Cities) has found with its award-winning platform known as “3D City.” Essentially what 3D City does is translate the complex data underlying the city’s land regulations into easy-to-understand visualizations. Landowners or developers can use the tool to see what they’re allowed to build on any particular lot. And residents can use it to understand what kind of construction is permitted in their neighborhoods, avoiding unwelcome surprises that change the character of their neighborhoods in unforeseen ways. The tool has also helped cut a week off the typical time it takes the city to approve construction projects.

“It allows any user to visualize in three dimensions what can be built in every single plot of Buenos Aires,” says Melisa Breda, the city’s undersecretary of evidence-based public policy. Breda notes that the tool runs on open-source software that other cities are free to use if they want to build similar solutions of their own. “Data is one of the most valuable assets cities have. But it’s not inherently valuable. Data acquires value only when we use it to improve the lives of residents.”

Read the full article about the future of data collection in cities at Bloomberg Cities Network.