City as a Platform: How It Changes Governance

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What is the future role of city governments? As

digital technologies are changing the way we interact with each other,
cities have to undergo a transition as well. Tomorrows government isnot
merely a centralised, rule-driven body, but enables and facilitates citizenled innovation through an open ecosystem, called city as a platform.

We tend to think of government as doing thingsbut we

should also think of government as a platform that lets
things happen. -Tim OReilly

We often expect our governments to do things, but we should also think of

the government as a platform that lets things happen. Thats the transition
we are currently undergoingunder the sophisticated name of City as a
Platform. Thanks to the omnipresent connectivity through Internet,
smartphones and other sources of data,the smartest city is the city
which knows how to leverage these digital networks in the most intelligent
ways.

Smart Governance
This digital transformation has also its implications for the governance of
cities. Aspen Institute puts it powerfully: Urban dwellers now live their
16
17
lives in all sorts of hyper-connected13
virtual spaces, pulsating
with real-

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City as a Platform: How It Changes Governance

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time information, intelligent devices, remote-access databases and

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participatory crowdsourcing.

Govern
ments
start to
realise
that
expertis
e is not
centraliz
ed, but
distribu

City as a Platform ( iBestuur)

ted
amongst all the eyes of the city. Governance is not just about getting most
of the votes during elections and assigning tasks to bureaucracies. It is also
about efficiently collecting and curating information, coming from citizens
and other data points, in order to enrich the decision-making process.

Indeed, civic crowdsourcing (or citizensourcing) is drastically changing

the relationship between cities and their citizens.In the traditional
governance system, every citizen has a single vote every X years. Today,
using digital technologies, it is much easier to voice your opinion as a
citizen.

New forms of city making

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City as a Platform: How It Changes Governance

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Collecting the ideas in a easy-to-use interface for the citizens is a first step
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in the right direction for municipalities. A digital solution should be
designed in such away that posting an idea for every citizen is as easy
asone, two, three.

Yet, governments often do not have the in-house resourcesto develop the
software. Thats why public authorities are increasingly lookingto cloud
software solutions to help them bridge the gap between the city and the
residents. Last week at the European Sustainable Cities Summit in Brussels,
the Belgian Minister of Digital Agendaexpressed that governments should
focus ontheir core: serving the citizenry with optimal public services.

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City as a Platform: How It Changes Governance

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To give a concrete example of how citizens engage in an act of co-creation
with the city, the Belgian city of Hasselt crowdsources input from their
citizens for an urban renewal project. Namely, the citizens share how they
imagine the new big city park Kapermolen. The city government will
consequently use these ideas to start drafting the plan for the park, which
will get reconstructed in 2017.

Power of Data
The power of participatory crowdsourcing goes beyond simply collecting
and curating ideas. It gets even more interesting when the ideas get
analysed and one can derive underlyingpreferences amongst the diverse
groups of citizens. Which city governor wouldnt be interested in finding
outhowcitizens from different neighbourhoods think about ideas? How
opinions differ amongst the different age groups? Data insightshelp cities
reacha more inclusive public decision-making.

In the concept of City as a Platform, the data is open. Open datamakes

city governments more porous, invites cross-sectoral cooperation and
initiates an enhanced engagement between citizens and cities. An open
governmentas an enabler for citizen-led innovations, thats where we are
going.

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More insights from CitizenLab Academy

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Stad als Platform: de

What is

Four Steps to

invloed op de

Citizensourcing?

Enhanced

besluitvorming

Crowdsourcing

A Network of City
Makers

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citizensourcing

crowdsourcing

city as a platform

civic crowdsourcing

participatory crowdsourcing

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CitizenLab
http://citizenlab.co
CitizenLab is a civic engagement platform on which citizens co-create
their city. Our SaaS solution is the medium for smart governments to
communicate with their citizens and to democratize city governance
through citizensourcing.

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