Citygram

Citygram is a geographic notification platform designed to work with open government data. It allows residents to designate area(s) of a city they are interested in and subscribe to one or more topics. When an event for a desired topic occurs in the subscriber's area of interest, a notification (email, SMS, or webhook) is delivered. Citygram is a Code for America project by the Charlotte and Lexington teams for the 2014 fellowship.

Why are we doing this?

We believe that there is an opportunity to help residents better understand what’s going on in their area, when it’s going to happen, and why. By providing timely information to residents in areas that are relevant to them, the city can be proactive instead of reactive, build trust through transparency, and increase civic engagement across the board.

Who is this made by?

See the contributors list.

Technical Overview

Citygram is a web application written in Ruby.

Web: Sinatra, Grape, Sprockets
Web server: Unicorn
Database/models: PostgreSQL, PostGIS, Sequel
Job Queue: Redis, Sidekiq
Tests: RSpec, FactoryGirl, Rack::Test

Setup

Install Redis - brew install redis
Install PostgreSQL
Install Ruby

In the command line, run the following:

Install Dependencies

git clone https://github.com/codeforamerica/citygram.git
cd citygram
rbenv install local
brew install postgresql postgis
gem install bundler
bundle install

Configure Environment

cp .env.sample .env
rake db:create db:migrate
rake db:create db:migrate DATABASE_URL=postgres://localhost/citygram_test

Developing

To boot up the complete application and run background jobs in development:

bundle exec foreman start
open http://localhost:5000/

You can now see your site at

Testing

Run all tests in the spec/ directory.

rake

sarutobi/citygram