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April 19, 2012
Crowdsourcing Better Neighborhoods

Driving around Boston one day, a city employee spotted something unusual, according to a post over on Fast Company’s blog:

April 6, 2012
Crowdsourced Moscow 2012: A Public Space Game

What if public space in our cities could be managed by an online citizenry? Crowdsource Moscow 2012 is an attempt to address the existing lack of communication between city stakeholders — citizens, developers, architects, artists — to generate new mechanisms of playful participation and co-creation of the city.

April 2, 2012
City of Birmingham hints at crowdsourced placemaking

While we have examples of the private sector crowdsourcing places and the public sector crowdsourcing ideas for placemaking, have we seen the public sector crowdsourcing ideas for places yet? The City of Birmingham, Alabama is at least hinting at it.

The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham and the City of Birmingham partnered to create a Prize2theFuture contest to provide anyone in the world the opportunity to inspire what happens on a small city block in downtown Birmingham. It attracted 3000 registrants from 39 countries submitting 1115 ideas during the contest period from January 13 to March 11, 2011, with the winner receiving $50K, second place $10K, third place $5000, and fourth through tenth place being rewarded with $1000. Kudos to the City of Birmingham for crowdsourcing worldwide publicity and brainstorming of ideas paving the way for something innovative and fresh in its downtown.

Crowdsourcing, or not, idea generation, development and selection
While crowdsourcing was applied to the idea generation/brainstorming phase, that’s about where it ended. The phases of idea development and idea prioritization/selection weren’t crowdsourced, as they were in Bristol, Connecticut, but left to a Prize2theFuture committee that decided the 10 winners. Perhaps at least some involvement for the local crowd to provide idea development; to comment on, upvote, campaign for and possibly improve or enhance the submitted ideas wasn’t taken advantage of, what crowdsourcing expert Clay Shirky describes as ’brainwriting’. I’m not so sure the local crowd would have selected the 10 winners that the committee chose to make a reality in their neighborhood either. You can decide for yourself here, with the winning ideas represented by the images below, where each idea may look like it reflects the values of a single firm/idea submitter rather than the community. However, the committee did come up with recurring themes from the 1115 ideas, which were:
- Multi-use facility that brings people together
- Both indoor and outdoor elements but not a duplication of Railroad Park
- Environmentally friendly, LEED designed, sustainable, with material reuse
- Leading edge technology
- Food (restaurants, cafes, markets, fresh produce)
- A civic icon, a new way to look at and get oriented to Birmingham
- Performance space/ venue
- Ties to rails, stations and respect for the historic Terminal Station.

However, to many, the recurring theme, by definition, may sound a bit obvious. What’s missing maybe is a second phase to crowdsource top ten ideas in each of those themes, which is what crowdsourcing idea development does. That’s where I’m betting you would have seen the popularity for a pedestrian-only zone (architecture being a separate issue), as presented in one of the submissions (above image), but nowhere to be seen other than the artist’s own website, and thus possibly completely forgotten unless… you guessed it, crowdsourcing for images.

Identifying the developer
The Community Foundation recently announced Request For Proposals (RFPs) to select a developer. This is something that is not and should not be crowdsourced, where there are significant liabilities and livelihoods at stake, as well as data the submitting developers need to keep confidential. Of the Foundation’s criteria in selecting a developer:
- Track record on leading successful projects from design to implementation, local representation/participation, diversity of team, LEED experience
- Track record of project financing, current financials
- Commitment to design excellence/innovation in interpreting Prize2theFuture themes
- Evidence of short-term/long-term financing for this project
- Economic sustainability/quality of proposed tenants

...one more criteria would make for a very compelling end result:
- Application of the open participation/crowdsourcing process in the Prize2theFuture program to the actual design and development. Maybe the criteria isn’t there because there are so few developers like a Renaissance Downtowns that’s actually committed to such an approach at a large scale.

Crowdsourcing the funding
However, the Community Foundation is way ahead of its time when it comes to funding. As a very progressive sign of things to come with crowdsourced placemaking, the Foundation raised $1,000,000 for predevelopment, crowdfunded by donors in a way, via a fundraising effort to invest in one’s own city.

February 22, 2012
Crowdsourcing Platform Enables Citizens to Document Crisis Information

These days, communities with great ideas are utilizing technology to improve their neighborhoods. Crowdmap is one such pervasive platform that allows users to crowdsource information like citizen protests or crisis information (ie. natural disasters) and view it on a map and timeline.

These days, communities with great ideas are utilizing technology to improve their neighborhoods. Crowdmap is one such pervasive platform that allows users to crowdsource information like citizen protests or crisis information (ie. natural disasters) and view it on a map and timeline.

February 15, 2012
25th Bled Conference - eDemocracy: from eRevolution to eParticipation

Don't miss this Special Interest Track at the 25th Bled Conference - eDemocracy: from eRevolution to eParticipation. The purpose of this Special Interest Track is to shed light on recent developments in this highly topical areas and to discuss exciting new projects, experiences and future (research) directions -especially from a infor-mation systems perspective.

January 11, 2012
Hilo, HI: First crowdsourced placemaking municipality

Crowdsourced placemaking had been a private sector sponsored success in Bristol, CT, but what about coming from the public sector?

To many, public sector sponsored crowdsourced placemaking sounded rather impossible, with such arguments as:

- A municipality doesn’t do placemaking, or implementation, the private sector does. It’s the actual physical implementation of building real places that sets crowdsourced placemaking apart from just crowdsourcing.
- The city government is obligated to listen to everyone, which means the ‘good’ will be countered with the ‘bad’ and the status quo will result..
- There’s just too much bureaucracy in government for them to sign off on something like crowdsourcing.

Well, the City of Hilo, Hawaii, with a population of around 50,000, launched a formal crowdsourced placemaking program in November, 2011 anyway, at ourdowntownhilo.com. Public support so far has been very positive. Here’s how they addressed the aforementioned concerns:

- Sponsored by the city planning department, the staff understands that it’s the private sector that does the actual placemaking when it comes to buildings, but that the public sector sets the rules when it comes to public places, which are often critical to the success of buildings. In addition, ideas that reach a certain level of popularity that are private sector oriented, such as a coffeehouse or a mixed-use building, are then connected to a private sector entity that’s willing to work with the crowd, given the benefit of having a market already assembled for them.
- The City of Hilo already went through an extensive visioning process to create a plan on how to essentially be more triple-bottom-line (economically, socially, environmentally) sustainable and prosperous by 2025. So it wasn’t difficult to require that all ideas be triple bottom line to comply with the plan.
- Why did the City of Hilo actually make the leap ahead of everyone else in what may very well be the standard way we plan and develop places in the future? It takes one person willing to be a pioneer, willing to take a risk, in a position of enough authority to make it happen, and that person was city planner Susan Gagorik.

December 29, 2011
Top 5 Most Popular EngagingCities Posts of 2011

We hope all of you have had a joyous holiday season, and from all of us here at EngagingCities, we wish you a prosperous and happy New Year! In conclusion to a great 2011, here’s a quick look back at our most popular posts, according to our web analytics data, from this past year. Cheers - more to come in 2012! 

We hope all of you have had a joyous holiday season, and from all of us here at EngagingCities, we wish you a prosperous and happy New Year! In conclusion to a great 2011, here’s a quick look back at our most popular posts, according to our web analytics data, from this past year.

Cheers - more to come in 2012!  

December 22, 2011
Working together to make our cities great

In the lead up to Christmas, a time of giving and community spirit, it seems only fitting we look at one of the big urban trends of 2011, collaborative urbanism. Also known as ‘tactical urbanism’, ‘do it yourself’, and ‘lighter, quicker, cheaper’, collaborative urbanism describes community activated place making. Its about community led revitalization and the way in which it starts locally but has the potential to impact on a global audience.

In the lead up to Christmas, a time of giving and community spirit, it seems only fitting we look at one of the big urban trends of 2011, collaborative urbanism.

Also known as ‘tactical urbanism’, ‘do it yourself’, and ‘lighter, quicker, cheaper’, collaborative urbanism describes community activated place making. Its about community led revitalization and the way in which it starts locally but has the potential to impact on a global audience.

December 1, 2011
Social Cities: How to Engage Citizens With Digital Media

The increasing growth and complexity of cities raises the question how we can use digital media technologies and principles from online culture to design livable and lively cities. How can digital media aid citizens to engage with their environment, with fellow urbanites, and with issues at stake in their cities? Most mobile and location-based apps are about personalized consumption and sharing preferences with an in-group of like-minded people. Can we use digital technologies to help solve collective problems in the city too?

The increasing growth and complexity of cities raises the question how we can use digital media technologies and principles from online culture to design livable and lively cities. How can digital media aid citizens to engage with their environment, with fellow urbanites, and with issues at stake in their cities? Most mobile and location-based apps are about personalized consumption and sharing preferences with an in-group of like-minded people. Can we use digital technologies to help solve collective problems in the city too?

November 1, 2011
The crowdsourced placemaking grant list

Demand sparks supply, so let’s get a list of cities that want to see crowdsourced placemaking in their city, town and/or neighborhood. Then we’ll look into how we can secure grants for them, whether it’s through a new national/international nonprofit or through a local nonprofit. See this NY Times story on Bristol, CT,“You ‘Like’ It, They Build It” for an example of results, which should be a compelling story for potential funders for programs initiated by the local community.

What would the grant be for?

1. Establish a crowdsourced placemaking program to identify a feasible market for revitalizing a downtown as a community (aka the “crowd”). See Bristol Rising as an example of one that’s grown to 1200 people in a year.
2. Help the crowd identify key public amenities and businesses via crowdsourced placemaking platform that raise the benchmark for placemaking. See the piazza in Bristol as an example.
3. Work with the crowd to design/plan these public spaces, integrating the retail, into investable destinations.
4. Secure a developer/investment team/crowdfund to implement those places.

A crowdsourced placemaking community candidate must have a champion, that is, a person willing to represent their community, at least until they’re willing to pass the torch to someone else. Here’s a running list - the larger the list, the more compelling it will be to potential funders that there is indeed a demand:

Sandy Maxey, Asheville, North Carolina
Ferndale, Michigan
Bike Walk Logan Square, Logan Square, Chicago
Susan Gagorik, Our Downtown Hilo, Hilo, Hawaii
Nate Rudy, Gardiner, Maine
Ed Walker, CityWorks, Roanoke, Virginia

Photo by chrisanter.

September 22, 2011
Crowdsourcing the Walkability of Streets in New York and the UK

It’s generally agreed that walkable streets, neighbourhoods and cities are a good thing.  Walkable areas produce a whole range of benefits that include less obesity and healthier residents, boosting property values and the economy, fewer traffic accidents, reduced CO2 emissions and maybe even more people walking!

It’s generally agreed that walkable streets, neighbourhoods and cities are a good thing.  Walkable areas produce a whole range of benefits that include less obesity and healthier residents, boosting property values and the 

September 12, 2011
Our Picks From Next American City's Top Apps & Tools for Civic Engagement

As mutual advocates of issues central to the future of cities, Next American City is just one of the resources that EngagingCities staff refers to from time to time in search of the top trends and tools related to socially and environmentally sustainable economic growth in America’s cities. Recently, Next American City Magazine published a comprehensive list of best apps, websites and software for enhancing and improving urban life. The list included tools affiliated with everything from city governance,  mapping and transportation, to “living well”.  Our favorites are...

July 14, 2011
New “Crowdsourcing for Idiots” book features town

There’s a plethora of books on crowdsourcing out there, but only one documents the crowdsourcing of a city’s entire downtown. In other words, it shows you how far crowdsourcing has come along, from T-shirts to now cities.

Below is the full excerpt from the book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Crowdsourcing by Aliza Sherman, published July 2011 (sure, we had something to do with it). Two days after the book was released, the NY Times published an article on the crowdsourced placemaking of the city’s downtown as well, You ‘Like’ It, They Build it.

Chapter 21: Organizing for Crowd Action

Bristol, Connecticut, Sources Ideas

The city of Bristol, Connecticut (pop. 61,000), crowdsourced ideas for a local site revitalization project. The city had a vacant 17-acre former shopping mall site. The developer, Renaissance Downtowns, turned to “crowdsourced placemaking” company Cooltown Beta Communities (cooltownbeta.com), which specializes in gathering “beta communities” to come together to help innovate community-oriented places.

For Renaissance Downtown’s Bristol redevelopment effort, Cooltown was brought in to help the developer crowdsource ideas to revitalize the site and to incorporate what the community actually wanted and needed. They were looking to create a sustainable, environmentally-friendly local destination: a town center.

Community members joined the crowd to help develop a future neighborhood that focused on the “triple bottom line” of “people, planet, profit.“ Cooltown used Ning as the online space for gathering their community and incorporated their proprietary online tool, Bubbly (bubblyapp.com), to create a visual idea-sharing mechanism that let community members submit and rate ideas. The project sites are Bristol Rising (bristolrising.com) and Bristol Rising Survey (bristolrisingsurvey.com).

Since fall of 2010, over 240 residents were participating in the project, submitting and voting on ideas. Ideas that receive a minimum number of votes will be assessed for financial feasibility, then potentially move on to inclusion in the project’s master plan. The project was still in progress in the spring of 2011.

May 4, 2011
Open Gov West in Portland: Conversations on people, technology and opening government

When it comes to learning more about applying technology in the work of governments, especially local governments planning and improving urban areas, there are a lot of topics to wade through — part of what makes the space so exciting, but also daunting when it comes to finding the people who care about the same thing that you do.

When it comes to learning more about applying technology in the work of governments, especially local governments planning and improving urban areas, there are a lot of topics to wade through — part of what makes the space so exciting, but also daunting when it comes to finding the people who care about the same thing that you do.

August 25, 2010
Using Crowdsourcing Effectively

Our friend Tim Bonnemann recently wrote a commentary on the evolving uses of crowdsourcing technology over at Federal Computer Week.  Namely, the coupling of crowdsourcing with government decision-making and policy creation.  Bonnemann suggests that successful case studies using this technique, may not be applicable in many contexts of Government2.0.  He references an article by Jeff Howe in Wired magazine that originally coined and defined the term crowdsourcing.

May 27, 2010
Community Assistance Through Crowdsourcing

If you are working with distressed neighborhoods but lack funding or expertise to tackle pressing issues, call on the SDAT, the Sustainable Design Assessment Team.  The SDAT is sponsored by the American Institute of Architects and each year they select communities in need, provide around $15,000 in funding and dispatch the SDAT team.  What exactly does the SDAT do?  They provide community assistance by, according to their mission, helping to develop a “vision and framework for a sustainable future” for communities by “achieving balance between cultural, environmental and economic systems”.

April 7, 2010
How does crowdsourcing relate to public engagement?

Last week the UK Conservative party launched a competition with a £1m cash prize to a person or team that creates an online platform that can be used to solve “common problems”. 

Last week the UK Conservative party launched a competition with a £1m cash prize to a person or team that creates an online platform that can be used to solve “common problems”. From the announcement:

December 15, 2009
Social Media Trends for Local Government in 2010

It’s that time of the year, the holidays are coming closer and I decided to take some time to take a look at what others are predicting f­or 2010 in eDe­mocracy and eGovernment.

It’s that time of the year, the holidays are coming closer and I decided to take some time to take a look at what others are predicting f­or 2010 in eDe­mocracy and eGovernment.

One article that caught my attention is Dion Hinchcliffe­’s The Government 2.0 Forecast For 2010: 7 Predictions in the Social Computing Journal. His key points include:

November 21, 2009
Crowdsourcing places for creatives... in Washington DC

Crowdsourcing real estate development in Washington DC