Crowdsourcing

As part of the Vision Zero initiative for traffic safety, the city has hosted a map system that allowed citizens to report safety issues encountered on the street. With the reporting period now over, you can still peruse the findings of the exercise.

August 5, 2014 - StreetsBlog NYC

Crowdsourcing is a great tool for locating potholes and taking surveys – but can it inspire an underdeveloped neighborhood to come together as a community? A developer in Salt Lake City is motivating residents to use DIY techniques in placemaking.

May 14, 2013 - Tim Halbur

Two D.C. developers are giving people the power to finance development in their own communities, paving the way for a new, democratized approach to commercial real estate investment, Emily Badger reports.

November 19, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

First rolled out last year to help crowdsource ideas for tenants for the renovation of a 4,250 sf building in Washington, D.C., the website Popularise is getting its first tryout outside the district at a new 13-story office building in Seattle.

September 24, 2012 - Seattle Met

As China goes car crazy, a new crowdsourcing website seeks to address the needs of Beijing's lowly pedestrians and bicyclists, reports Nate Berg.

July 26, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

Policy Matters looks at a recent article in The Washington Post about Terry Lynch, the city's notorious "pest" who complains about all matters of urban blight, and argues why cities would be better off with more Terrys.

June 19, 2012 - Policy Matters

As cash-strapped and technologically savvy governments increasingly look to harness the power of the crowd, William D. Eggers and Rob Hamill offer suggestions for "Five Ways Crowdsourcing Can Transform the Public Sphere."

May 25, 2012 - Governing

New technologies are providing participatory platforms that allow individuals to share their ideas, interact with other's ideas, and work towards collaborative solutions to resolve problems or take advantage of opportunities. Kevin C. Desouza, PhD offers five guidelines to ensure that the use of such emerging technologies are maximized by practitioners.

March 5, 2012 - Kevin C. Desouza

Michael J. Coren shines a light on an innovative crowdfunding site targeting neighborhood improvements.

February 28, 2012 - Fast Co.Exisit

In order to educate its citizens on how budgeting decisions are made, and inform decision makers on the priorities of its citizens, Calgary has engaged in an ambitious outreach process to get citizens to participate in drafting the city's budget.

February 3, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

As cyclists toured Watts and other parts of South Los Angeles, they were invited to share photographs and record places of interest along the way.

January 24, 2012 - Los Angeles Times

The Environmental Protection Agency is crowdsourcing a massive photo project to update a 40-year old agency project known as 'Documerica', which includes images of American environmental problems and everyday life.

January 9, 2012 - Network World

Peter Sigrist takes us through three other tools for open sourced, democratic governance processes conducive to mobilization, collaboration, and funding--each integral for the crowdsourced city.

September 23, 2011 - POLIS

Historically, data sources for urban planning have remained relatively stable. Planners relied on a collection of well-known government-produced datasets to do their work, including statistics and geographic layers from federal, state and local sources. Produced by regulatory processes or occasional surveys, the strengths and limitations of these sources are well known to planners and many citizens. However all this is beginning to change. Not only has the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey introduced a bewildering variety of data products, all with margins of error, three interrelated categories of new data are growing rapidly: crowdsourced, private, and "big" data.

September 1, 2011 - Robert Goodspeed

Crowd-funded plans to build a statue of the movie character RoboCop are moving ahead in Detroit, and the project is redefining public participation in civic ventures.

June 28, 2011 - domus

Alexandra Lange highlights a crowd-sourced urban design that actually worked.

June 7, 2011 - Design Observer

A new online tool uses the power of crowdsourcing to "map, inventory, and preserve the Philadelphia urban forest."

April 29, 2011 - Azavea

NYC's Deputy Mayor of Operations Stephen Goldsmith reflects on the value of listening to people, and talks about the new crowdsourcing projects the city is rolling out.

February 27, 2011 - Governing

"Give a Minute" is a program that seeks ideas for fixing cities directly from the people who use them, using ads in newspapers and displays in public spaces to ask a big question, such as "What would get you to walk, bike or take transit more often?"

December 25, 2010 - Urban Omnibus

Steven Johnson examines how officials in New York and other cities can leverage information collected from public call centers to build better cities.

November 5, 2010 - Wired