A very affluent suburb in IL is asking for a cool million for two bike paths. That’s the critical need to stimulate spending…? One can only guess what Chicago is asking.

It would only take a sentence to make the limited scope of the data immediately clear to users. The USCM report itself stresses that its surveys are not an “inventory” of projects, but “examples” from around the country from only 779 cities. Stimulus Watch could readily fit that distinction (and language) on its front page.

Having this distinction highlighted for Stimulus Watch visitors would make the information more quickly understood by those who are casual researchers.

While this point may seem picky, I think the designers failed to think through the needs of the lay reader who is coming to the site.

Some visitors from Southern Minnesota, for example, have shared with me that they furious that no projects in that region are included in the database. As casual readers and researchers who are not used to checking “About” or clicking through to an original source or original report, they hastily concluded that their communities are being left out of the Recovery Act.

The problem is easily avoided. Were the very limited nature of the dataset underscored at the beginning, they’d be less likely to jump to conclusions.

This clarity could be achieved by a single sentence. How about it? Make the site itself a bit more transparent.

What a crock- after 8 years of literally destroying this country under Bush’s watch and utter corruption and the destruction of our economy, NOW republicans decide to become thrifty. This site is yet another right wing JOKE.

Where were these so called “patriots” when Bush never vetoed a bill passed by his desk by his right wing representatives? Where is the discussion and outrage over Bush’s massive spending that many a speculator wrote articles on saying he’s the biggest spender in history.. where were the watch sites then?

Too funny, really.

the project descriptions are what the Mayors submitted themselves, subsequently posted on their website. So any apparent errors or inadequate project descriptions should be checked against:

http://www.usmayors.org/mainstreeteconomicrecovery/

Some cities, like Richmond, did not yet submit requests (and may not submit at all).