New comparisons give local leaders a view of support, opposition and participation in other communities.
Hamlet today released rankings that compare support and opposition expressed at local public meetings on housing, data centers, street design and other issues facing American cities and counties.
The rankings bring scattered meeting records into a common view. Readers can compare places by topic and population group, see how many people spoke for or against a defined policy question, and follow links to the meetings and video of the comments behind the results.
“Cities share a lot in common, including public policy choices. Learning from one another has been a core tenant of local government and our solutions make that comparison easier than ever. Hamlet enables cities to learn with speed,” said Sunil Rajaraman, founder and CEO of Hamlet. “Hamlet has tens of thousands of city council meeting absorbed into our platforms, enabling our clients to quickly assess the political landscape of most cities in America.”
California results illustrate the differences. Among people whose comments were classified as taking a side:
- Mountain View recorded 25 people for narrowing roads to add bike lanes, sidewalks or safety features, and five against. San Luis Obispo recorded four for and seven against.
- Modesto recorded 30 people against allowing data centers and none for.
- Santa Clara recorded 31 people for building pickleball courts and none against.
For staff preparing a briefing or planning public engagement, those comparisons offer a starting point: which communities have discussed the same issue, how the recorded comments split, and how much participation sits behind each result.
A place must have at least 10 people speaking across two or more meetings to qualify for a rank. Places below that threshold appear for context. Rankings are specific to the topic, population group and list shown.
The analysis covers meeting records from the past 24 months, with end dates shown for each topic. The road-design example above runs through October 16, 2026, and the pickleball example through October 15, 2026; the data-center example runs through October 2, 2026. Results reflect the people who spoke in covered meetings, not a poll of residents. Hamlet uses automated interpretation of comments, which can miss or misread individual remarks.
Other topics include duplexes and small apartment buildings, surveillance and license plate readers, short-term rentals, clearing homeless encampments, bike lanes, speed cameras and speed bumps.
Explore the rankings: [PUBLIC RANKINGS URL]
About Hamlet
Hamlet makes local government meeting records searchable. Its platform helps readers find discussions across city councils, planning commissions and other public bodies, and return to the source recordings. Learn more at myhamlet.com.
Media contact: Lindsey, Hamlet | lindsey@myhamlet.com