The document discusses how cities can become smart through public participation. It argues that cities are smart when they actively involve the public in management through (1) providing open data, (2) using apps to efficiently harness public input, and (3) recognizing that citizens will find their own solutions if opportunities for participation are not provided. The document provides many examples of apps and projects that facilitate public participation in city governance and management.

1. People Make Cities Smart
Andrew Nash
GreenCityStreets.com
Conference: Why are cities smart?
Miskolc, Hungary
November 27, 2014

2. Photo by flowcomm - Creative Commons Attribution License https://www.flickr.com/photos/21162417@N07 Created with Haiku Deck

3. What makes a city smart?
 Using technology to make cities
more efficient e.g., energy saving?
 Centralized control centres to monitor and
manage infrastructure and services?
 Using technology to increase public
participation in activities of civic living?

4. Public participation … because it helps:
• Generate better ideas
Detailed local knowledge & fresh perspective
• Provide political support
Especially important for tough decisions
• Create committed residents
People willing to act

5. Information technology has
vastly increased the ability
of people to participate.

6. What is public participation:
A. Providing input
B. Analyzing data
C. Collaborating in activities
D. Supporting decision-making
E. Taking action
Support
Input Analysis Collaboration Output

7. A. Collecting Input: efficiency + visibility
• Mainstream social media (Twitter, Facebook)
• Reporting applications

8. Chicago Transit Authority – Twitter Feed

9. Zurich Public Transport Authority – Facebook Page

10. Reporting Applications

11. SeeClickFix page for San Francisco http://seeclickfix.com

14. Traffic Check http://www.trafficcheck.at/
User friendly features needed for mobile phone reporting:
• automatic geo location,
• logical information flow,
• check boxes for data entry.

15. Reporting Apps + GPS + Sensors

16. Meine Radspur, Vienna http://www.meineradspur.at/

17. Street Bump, Boston http://streetbump.org/

20. B. Data Analysis: no longer a monopoly
• City data – open data or scraped.
• Citizen data – cheap sensors.

21. Citizen developed applications and visualizations from open data.
Stumble Safely, Washington D.C.

22. WayCount vehicle counter and software www.waycount.com

23. Smart Citizen sensor and software http://www.smartcitizen.me/

25. C. Collaboration: Participate efficiently

26. San Francisco Mind Mixer website www.improveSF.com

27. Shareabouts – geo collaboration openplans.org/work/shareabouts/

28. GreenCityStreets.com … Facebook-based collaboration

29. Loomio – public infrastructure for collaborative decision making
www.loomio.org - please support their crowd funding effort!

30. D. Support: improved collaboration
• Education – cities are complex
• Better processes – meeting management
• Increased engagement – more is better

31. BusMeister … public transport learning http://greencitystreets.com

32. Participatory
Chinatown
Boston
Using virtual reality to
understand urban planning.
http://www.participatorychinatown.org/

33. http://streetmix.net

34. Improve Public Transport wiki … crowd-sourced information
about public transport. http://greencitystreets.com

35. Grr-Grr-Bike … smartphone game for
education + engagement. www.grr-grr-bike.com

36. Plan in A Box – tools for planning http://planinabox.org

37. E. Action: it starts getting interesting …
• Information – e.g. transit information
• Clean-up days
• P2P ridesharing – sharing culture
• Casserole – shared meals and socialization
• Crowd-sourced civic works – Kickstarter

39. Ciclo Rotas Centro project Rio de Janerio, Brazil

41. So it’s not:
Why are cities smart?
But rather …

42. How are cities smart?
When they …
1. Actively involve the public in managing the city.
2. Provide open data to increase understanding
and solving problems (e.g., using new apps).
3. Use apps to harness public energy efficiently.
4. Recognize if they don’t do it – someone else will.

43. Andrew Nash helps clients develop social
media, serious games and crowd sourcing
applications designed to improve cities and
transport systems. His current projects
include Grr-Grr-Bike (www.grr-grr-bike.com),
a smart phone game designed to encourage
people to get involved in urban bicycle
planning and advocacy, and
www.GreenCityStreets.com, a project that
uses a serious game and a wiki-based best
practices website to educate people about
public transport operations and a Facebook-based
crowdsourcing platform. You can
reach him at: andy@andynash.com

44. References
• Nash, Andrew; A Proposed Structure for Understanding Interactive City
Tools; May 2013, http://andynash.com/publications/
• “Interactive City Tool” from Play the City http://www.playthecity.nl/
• Code for America (CfA) http://codeforamerica.org/
• OpenPlans http://openplans.org
• Open Knowledge Foundation http://okfn.org/
• GovLab Open Governance WIKI http://thegovlab.org/wiki/Main_Page
Reporting Applications
• Seeclickfix http://seeclickfix.org
• Fix My Transport http://www.fixmytransport.com
• Citizens Connect
http://www.cityofboston.gov/doit/apps/citizensconnect.asp
• Traffic Check http://www.trafficcheck.at/
• Verbeterdebuurt, Netherlands http://www.verbeterdebuurt.nl/

45. References - 2
GPS Data Reporting Applications
• CycleTracks, San Francisco – GPS data collection system for bicycling:
http://www.sfcta.org/modeling-and-travel-forecasting/
• Meine Radspur, Vienna http://www.meineradspur.at/
• StreetBump, Boston http://streetbump.org
• Waze roadway GPS data collection www.waze.com
• Moovit public transport GPS reporting app: www.moovitapp.com
Citizen Collected Data
• WayCount traffic counter: http://trafficcom.org
• Air Quality Egg: http://airqualityegg.com
• Cosm sensor data sharing platform https://cosm.com/
• Seeplan – project by Even Westvang from Bengler – http://bengler.no/seeplan

46. References - 3
Collaboration Applications
• MindMixer www.mindmixer.com
• Shareabouts http://shareabouts.org
• GreenCityStreets.com www.greencitystreets.com
• Loomio – crowd sourced decision making www.loomio.org
• Bogotá – My ideal city
http://www.miciudadideal.com/en/citizen_sourced
Citizen Collected Data
• WayCount traffic counter: http://trafficcom.org
• Air Quality Egg: http://airqualityegg.com
• Cosm sensor data sharing platform https://cosm.com/

47. References - 4
Support and Education
• Community Planit http://communityplanit.org
• BusMeister Game http://www.greencitystreets.com
• Participatory Chinatown http://www.participatorychinatown.org/
• Streetmix.net http://streetmix.net
• Grr-Grr-Bike engagement game http://www.grr-grr-bike.com
• Designing Chicago http://designingchicago.com/
• Plan in a Box http://planinabox.org/
• Simpl Challenge http://www.simpl.co/howitworks
Taking Action
• Everyday Growing Cultures http://everydaygrowingcultures.org
• 596 Acres – New York http://596acres.org/
• Ciclos Rotas Centro – Rio de Janeiro http://events.gsapp.org/event/ciclo-rotas-centro-
0
• Networks of Dispossession – Turkey http://mulksuzlestirme.org/index_en.html