Question about crowdsourcing a city
What do you think about citizens, organized through the Internet, proposing and electing ideas that have direct impact in the way your city works? Could this be a good or a bad thing? Why?
An Open Thesis
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This is the home for an academic thesis on how crowds of citizens can participate in transforming their city to better fit their collective reality.
The academic thesis is due on August 31st of this year for the Masters in Imagineering (business innovation from the experience perspective) in the NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands)Wiki
- An Open Thesis Wiki Wiki containing the actual thesis draft.
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I think the internet is a great medium to organize and share common ideas, thoughts, etc… it’s also a good ground to differ on these same subjects.
Keep on trekkin my frtiend!
I think it is a good idea, because this way people can get a “say” on what goes on in the places they live in, and decide what they want or don’t for their cities.
creo desde un primer punto de vistaa que seria perjudicial (no necesariamente MALO!!!) pero creo que seria perjudicial para el cumplimiento de los roles de los entes…autoridad, gobierno, sectores, pueblo. Alguno no cumpliria bien su función y creería tener mas autoridad o deberes o derechos qe no le corresponden sobre otros.
Creo que la participación por medio de la opinion seria mas productiva y podria darsele su bien ponderado valor al momento de la toma de decisiones.
tqm.
Viendo aun mas detenidamente la pregunta me parece que lo de “organizados a traves del internet”, medio masivo de expresión de ideas seria lo idoneo como medio de reflexión, opinion y aportacion por parte de los ciudadanos hacia CIERTAS tareas de la ciudad, rectifico sobre mi respuesta anterior ya que por no leer detenidamente imaginé en una querella o debate publico de las entidades y organismos de una ciudad junto a los ciudadanos.
tsq.
Hablando desde una ciudad entre el segundo y el tercer mundo con altos niveles de burocracia y corrupción un sistema de “crowdsurfing” sería ideal, le permitiría al ciudadano común que vive cada uno de los problemas de la sociedad, opinar y buscar en conjunto con otras comunidades las soluciones más pertinentes.. por ejemplo en mi ciudad hay un serio problema con el tráfico de automóviles (reconocido por todos) pero debido a que las personas con el poder gubernamental para solucionarlo no transitan por las calles ya que se movilizan en caravanas, autos privados y de preferencia nunca experimentan “en carne propia” esta situación… quien mejor para reconocer un problema y encontrar una solución que aquella persona que lo vive diariamente?
Un sistema de organización vía internet si es tomado en serio sería una estrategia efectiva para encontrar un problema ya y solucionarlo ya.. y recalco el punto en que sea tomado en serio.
donborjas.
maracaibo. venezuela.
Me parece super interesante esta idea. Lo que de entrada pienso es que es mucho más factible la aplicación de la misma sobre todo en ciudades de paises “desarrollados” y que de entrada tengan un órden a nivel de urbanismo.
Por otro lado, es posible que esta sea una manera de empezar a crear conciencia en paises no tan desarrollados (Venezuela, para poner un ejemplo conocido). Yo veo esto, si fuera en Venezuela, arrancando en ciudades “piloto” como Porlamar, Mérida, etc, que tengan gran afluencia turística… En todo caso, lo importante no es tanto el aporte de las ideas sino la puesta en marcha de las mismas
Saludos
Just to do a small recap translation of the latest posts:
Diego Moreno – said that he mentions an initial doubt, after misreading the question and skipping the mention of “through the internet”, about how well it could work for the tasks development to be up to the citizens.
Then he goes on to say that it would be a good idea to use the internet as a medium for the reflecting upon, voicing an opinion and aggregating ideas about CERTAIN tasks of how the city is run.
Daniel Borjas – points out that the difference that exists between countries of different “worlds” with regard to the functioning of some city tasks, and how a gap resides between the wants of the citizens and what is actually done.
Mentioning this, he believes that this solution could be very beneficial to improving such services in a quicker time span than the current way of doing things, as he comments about the traffic problem in Maracaibo, Venezuela, and how an approach like this might help citizens come up with solutions to a growing problem that has been failed to be addressed. At one point he utters the question “who better to recognize a problem and propose solutions then those who live the problem day-to-day?”
Miguelangel – Also refers to the difference between the way cities function in the “developed” world contrary to the rest, stating that it would be easier to implement such techniques in a city in the “developed” world and with some degree of urban planning. He then goes on to say that he sees the possibilities of this as a way to spread consciousness in the “not-so-developed” countries (like Venezuela).
In the case of Venezuela, he sees the approach starting in “pilot” cities like Porlamar (in the isle of Margarita), Mérida (one of the starting points to the Andes), etc. because of their great tourist affluence.
He ends his remark by stating that coming up with the solutions is not as important as that they actually are put to work.
Hi Mario,
Mellisa asked me to reply on this site. I think it’s a good idea, even more so, I worked on something similar some years ago. There’s a linkpage that you might find of interest. It’s in dutch, but you’ll understand most of the link names:
http://www.utopic.nl/05links/05data.html
One of the links is Demos, a facilitator of the kinds of processes that you may need:
http://www.demos-project.org/
There are also examples of the application of the program.
Best regards,
Hein Eberson
tutor Digital Concepts / Editorial Design / maHKU
Thanks for the links, Hein. I will take a look at it and even flew my underdeveloped Dutch-language muscles and see if I can understand any of at least the general ideas of the text. Again, thanks for the help.
I think it could be a good thing, specially a very practical thing if taken seriously enough. Definitely has to be properly organized so it doesn´t become some sort of open blog o a complaint board. For this reason you need a certain mentality of the people participating for it to work.
*hugz*
Additionally, I believe Internet is a very powerful tool. Not to be discriminating but I think that the profile of the internet users that would actually take the time to participate in such a thing could be an interesting target to survey.
Count me in if you will start something like this Mario
P.S. Hope this makes sense (I´m between meetings in a hotel ¨business center¨LOL)
Pienso que seria una excelente plataforma para dar a conocer las necesidades y opiniones de los ciudadanos que usualmente carecen de maneras de expresion dentro de las ciudades, sobre todo cuando son grandes. Permite un contacto 24 horas al dia con el tema a discutir o elegir y permite que el ciudadano participe desde cualquier lugar con acceso a internet.
I think it’s a great idea, because it’s a powerfull way for the citizens to comunicate the problems in their communities in a massive way. For example I saw in the news a couple of days ago, on how a band of bank robers were aprehended by the police because one witness published the situation on Twitter and someone else called the police.
So I finally got through all of your post and I am ready to participate.
The only problem I see in doing this, is that it is going to be heavily skewed towards the internet affluent citizens such as young people. The Obama administration has tried something similar, where the most popular propositions was marijuana legalisation, which by all means is a good proposition, but it does not reflect how the population thinks as a whole.
But I do think it is a good idea especially if you take into consideration that as it is, not that many young people are active in city planning (not in Denmark that is). I think as evy states earlier, that it is a different demographic and it would be exciting to find out, who they are, and what they can bring to the table.
I think it has its benefits, but also its downsides. When people vote for a city council, those people represent the inhabitants. The elected are proposed to attach importance to all perspectives, whereas inhabitants probably only will stride for their own good (and not take a look at the best solution concerning the environment, economy etc.). I think a city council is a better representation of the opinions of a city, then the inhabitants themself. Moreover, I think a city council decides by listening at their heart ánd the facts and figures, while inhabitants will probably make decisions based on their emotions. It is harder for them to take a certain distance from issues and that is sometimes very necessary in a decisionmaking process.
A benefit is that the city council knows what is really going on in the city and how the people feel, but I would still let them make the considerate decision.
So, it is a good idea for citizens to have a spot on the Internet where they can discuss and drop ideas, also have a dialogue with the city council, but in my opinion it should not have a direct impact on decisionmaking, only an indirect one. There must be an authority.
[...] the comments and links that were the result of the participation that ocurred in the post about the crowdsourcing the city question. Like the project itself tries to prove, things are done better when many are participating, [...]
Interesting thoughts on a not so far away future!
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