Code for America chooses Philly for web development team

It seems as though the City of Philadelphia will get a helping hand in its quest to move forward with the growing list of possibility in Web transparency and government openness.

As expected, Philadelphia was chosen as one of five cities to receive the work of a team of Web developers and technologists as part of the inaugural Code for America class.

Starting in January 2011, the organization, which founder Jen Pahlka called something of a Teach for America for online government application development, will give each city a top tech team of developers, designers, and product managers for an entire year to build out their dream application that drives transparency and participation within the city and its government.

Mashable reports that Philadelphia’s project will be an ‘Open311-type project.’ No word yet on how that relates to the 311 application that City technology honcho Allan Frank had pledged could be completed this month.

Winning is not entirely free, as WHYY reported in a follow up on our interview with Pahlka. The city would put out $225,000 for expenses, though CFA organizers say the talent they receive will exceed $1 million.

The other winning cities are Boston, Washington D.C., Seattle and Boulder, Colo.

Venture Beat East Coast technology tour skips Philadelphia

Remember that flurry of excitement earlier this year after Philly Startup Leaders co-founder Blake Jennelle helped stir up a conversation on why Philadelphia had to be among the five most emerging entrepreneurial markets in the country.

It might be important to note that while the region itself is working hard to develop a consensus on its direction, the destination of the Philadelphia startup is hardly accepted more universally.

As if we needed another reminder, VentureBeat wrote on a East Coast tour of technology communities: Washington D.C. to Boston, with a New York City in the middle, but not a stop in Philadelphia to be found — even if trains and the highways all take them our way. Now, Baltimore may take issue with all of this too, but even partners in locally-founded investment companies are talking about the67thward.

As VB’s DemoBeat wrote: “We’ll be back on the road over the next few months, to continue our search for more entrepreneurs intent on changing the world with their technologies.”

Maybe they’ll come our way then.

Startup Roundup: ‘X’ is the only city in which to start a Web company

Introducing Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup. Here, we’ll parse out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. Follow along with the Startup Roundup’s dedicated RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

DEFINITE READS

Coverage of city technology scenes continues to dominate startup and entrepreneurial conversations across the country, leading to an important question: Is “X” City’s scene better than others?

You know well that we cheer on the Philly technology community, for good reason. But given a handful of articles that we’ve come across recently—and featured in this roundup—we can’t help but raise a question that we’ve asked before: Does it matter whether or not we receive national recognition for our startup scene?

American Express’s OPEN forum for small businesses, just, well, completes us. The site asks that very question: For Web entrepreneurs, does location matter?

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