"Yangon is a city rich with history—a former capital, a center of commerce, and today, a city bristling with construction cranes, clogged with vehicles, and throbbing with the aspirations of its swelling population. Demographic changes, economic growth, and Myanmar’s new international openness have left the Yangon City Development Committee, the city’s municipal government, scrambling to deliver public services and provide effective governance for a population of almost six million. After decades of international isolation and government secrecy that left a lasting deficit in public trust and participation, the governments of Myanmar’s major cities have begun to recognize that effective governance is built on communication between a city’s leaders and its citizens. Quite simply, governments cannot serve the governed if they don’t know what’s going on. Elected officials, who must provide effective public services with limited resources, are awakening to the information value of public participation. The Development Affairs Organization of Taunggyi, a city in Southern Shan State, and the mayor of Mandalay City, for example, have been actively corresponding with city residents on Facebook. In Yangon’s recent election debates, one candidate proclaimed that citizens would be able to call him personally to register complaints. As a citizen of Yangon City, I understand the importance of this public dialogue. Government decisions on routine matters such as public transit, waste collection, deteriorating air quality, the proliferation of concrete high-rises, or the growing intensity of traffic jams affect the well-being of every resident of this city every day. But while openness to public opinion is an important step for an emerging democracy, anecdotal information from Facebook posts and phone calls from dissatisfied citizens can be treacherously unreliable, amplifying the voices of a motivated, but not necessarily representative, few. Clearly, the first step in responsive, democratic policymaking—understanding the will of the people—is a tall one. This is why my team at The Asia Foundation, Myanmar, has developed the City Life Survey (CLS), a modern data tool for democratic policymaking by urban decision-makers..."