Giving Compass' Take:

• Joe Szydlowski reports that the city of Salinas, California has created an open data portal to provide transparent, accessible information about the city to residents. 

• How can this information be used to improve the city? How can other cities create their own portals? 

• Learn about building equitable smart cities. 

Salinas city officials unveiled a new website in July that publishes a trove of statistics, such as how many crimes took place in individual neighborhoods.

The city of Salinas Open Data Portal, contains information on public safety, developments, traffic and more in efforts to make Salinas a smart, aka tech-savvy, city, said Eric Sandoval, the city's geographic information systems administrator.

Users can also pick different groups of data to customize reports, such as seeing how many streets with bike lanes are near schools, Sandoval said.

"It's really about government transparency," Sandoval said at the press conference announcing the site.

It also makes the data available for download for anyone interested, such as app developers, Sandoval said.

Read the full article about the open data portal by Joe Szydlowski at The Californian.