Innovative Data for Urban Planning: The Opportunities and Challenges of Public-Private Data Partnerships

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

GSMA Report: “Rapid urbanisation will be one of the most pressing and complex challenges in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs) for the next several decades. With cities in Africa and Asia expected to add more than one billion people, urban populations will represent two-thirds of the world population by 2050. This presents LMICs with an interesting opportunity and challenge, where rapid urbanisation can both contribute to economic or poverty growth.

The rapid pace and unequal character of urbanisation in LMICs has meant that not enough data has been generated to support urban planning solutions and the effective provision of urban utility services. Data-sharing partnerships between the public and private sector can bridge this data gap and open up an opportunity for governments to address urbanisation challenges with data-driven decisions. Innovative data sources such as mobile network operator data, remote sensing data, utility services data and other digital services data, can be applied to a range of critical urban planning and service provision use cases.

This report identifies challenges and enablers for public-private data-sharing partnerships (PPPs) that relate to the partnership engagement model, data and technology, regulation and ethics frameworks and evaluation and sustainability….(More)”

The Place of Local Government Law in the Urban Digital Age

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Beatriz Botero Arcila: “A central theme of local government law scholarship is how local government law shapes urban policymaking. Local government law is the body of law that establishes the formal authority of cities and, as such, it creates the limited legal framework in which municipalities operate. Consequently, it shapes the potential economic development strategies of cities. In the digital economy, the rise of digital technology firms that provide urban services and services for city governments promises to entice local innovation and business opportunities and represent important economic development opportunities. Nevertheless, the implementation and deployment of these technologies in cities have also become regulatory challenges for cities and have raised important concerns about their potential to increase urban inequality and corporate power while entrenching surveillance in the city-fabric.

However, the literature that warns on these risks rarely addresses how the legal system and, in particular local government law, shapes the form of these technologies and creates incentives for local governments and the companies themselves to adopt, regulate and design these technologies in particular ways. This Essay presents an analysis of how local government law participates in shaping the present form of the urban digital information economy….(More)”.

Exploring city digital twins as policy tools: A task-based approach to generating synthetic data on urban mobility

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Gleb Papyshev and Masaru Yarime: “This article discusses the technology of city digital twins (CDTs) and its potential applications in the policymaking context. The article analyzes the history of the development of the concept of digital twins and how it is now being adopted on a city-scale. One of the most advanced projects in the field—Virtual Singapore—is discussed in detail to determine the scope of its potential domains of application and highlight challenges associated with it. Concerns related to data privacy, availability, and its applicability for predictive simulations are analyzed, and potential usage of synthetic data is proposed as a way to address these challenges. The authors argue that despite the abundance of urban data, the historical data are not always applicable for predictions about the events for which there does not exist any data, as well as discuss the potential privacy challenges of the usage of micro-level individual mobility data in CDTs. A task-based approach to urban mobility data generation is proposed in the last section of the article. This approach suggests that city authorities can establish services responsible for asking people to conduct certain activities in an urban environment in order to create data for possible policy interventions for which there does not exist useful historical data. This approach can help in addressing the challenges associated with the availability of data without raising privacy concerns, as the data generated through this approach will not represent any real individual in society….(More)”.

Proposal for a European Interoperability Framework for Smart Cities and Communities (EIF4SCC) published

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Nóirín Ní Earcáin: “In recognition of the importance of interoperability and the specific challenges it presents in a city context, The Commission (DG DIGIT and DG CONNECT) appointed Deloitte and KU Leven to prepare a “Proposal for a European Interoperability Framework for Smart Cities and Communities”. While an EIF for eGovernment has been in place since 2010, this is the first time the concepts and ideas developed there have been adapted to the local context.

The aim of the EIF4SCC is to provide EU local administration leaders with definitions, principles, recommendations, practical use cases drawn from cities and communities from around Europe and beyond, and a common model to facilitate delivery of services to the public across domains, cities, regions and borders.

The framework was developed by building on and finding complementarities with previous and ongoing initiatives, such as the Living-in.EU movement, the 2017 European Interoperability Framework (EIF), the Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms (MIMs Plus) and the outcomes of EU funded initiatives (e.g.Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Digital Building Blocks, Smart Cities Marketplace, Intelligent Cities Challenge, Digital Transition Partnership under the Urban Agenda) and EU funded projects (Synchronicity, Triangulum, etc.).

Why do cities and communities need interoperability?

The EIF4SCC is targeted at EU local administration leaders and aims to provide a generic framework of interoperability of all types, and how it can contribute to the development of a Smart(er) City/Community. This will pave the way for services for citizens and business to be offered not only in a single city, but also across cities, regions and across borders.

European Interoperability Framework for Smart Cities and Communities

The EIF4SCC includes three concepts (interoperability, smart city or community, EIF4SCC), five principles (drawing on the Living-in.EU declaration), and seven elements (consisting of the five components of interoperability, one cross-cutting layer – Integrated Service Governance, and a foundational layer of Interoperability Governance)….The European Commission encourages local administrations at regional, city and community level to review the Proposed EIF4SCC, and the accompanying Final Study Report which details the methodology, literature review, and stakeholder engagement process undertaken. It will be discussed through the Living-in.EU community and other fora, with a view to its adoption as an official Commission document, based on users’ and stakeholders’ feedback…(More)”.

Governing smart cities: policy benchmarks for ethical and responsible smart city development

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the World Economic Forum: “… provides a benchmark for cities looking to establish policies for ethical and responsible governance of their smart city programmes. It explores current practices relating to five foundational policies: ICT accessibility, privacy impact assessment, cyber accountability, digital infrastructure and open data. The findings are based on surveys and interviews with policy experts and city government officials from the Alliance’s 36 “Pioneer Cities”. The data and insights presented in the report come from an assessment of detailed policy elements rather than the high-level indicators often used in maturity frameworks….(More)”.

How to predict citizen engagement in urban innovation projects?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blogpost by Julien Carbonnell: “Citizen engagement in decision-making has proven to be a key factor for success in a smart city project and a must-have of contemporary democratic regimes. While inhabitants are all daily internet users, they widely inform themselves about their political electives’ achievements during the mandate, interact with each other on social networks, and by word-of-mouth on messaging apps or phone calls to form an opinion.

Unfortunately, most of the smart cities’ rankings lack resources to evaluate the citizen engagement dynamic around the urban innovations deployed. Indeed this data can’t be found on official open data portals, focused instead on cities’ infrastructure and quality of life. These include the number of metro stations, the length of bike lanes, air pollution, and tap water quality. Some of them also include field investigation such as the amount of investment in this or that urban area and communication dynamics about a new smart city project.

If this kind of formal information provides a good overview of the official state of development of a city, it does not give any insight from the inhabitants themselves and sounds out the street vibes of a city.

So, I’ve been working on filling this gap for the last 3 years and share in Democracy Studio all the elements of my method and tools built for conducting such analysis. To do so, I have notably been collecting inhabitants’ participation in a survey study in three case study cities: Taipei (Taiwan), Tel Aviv (Israel), and Tallinn (Estonia). I collected 366 answers by contacting inhabitants randomly online (Facebook groups, direct messages on LinkedIn, and through messaging apps) and in-person, in events related to my field of interest (Smart-City and Urban Innovation Startups). The resulting variables have been integrated into machine learning models, which finally performed a very satisfying prediction of the citizen engagement in my case studies….(More)”.

Helsinki invites cyclists to collect data on street conditions and earn money

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article at the Mayor.eu: “From Saturday 10 July, cyclists in Helsinki will be able to earn money doing what they love whilst simultaneously helping the municipality repair damaged streets. This was announced on 28 June when the City of Helsinki shared that all residents are invited to take part in a game to map out 300 kilometres of cycling paths in the capital.

In a press release, the City of Helsinki reports that anyone can participate as long as they have a bicycle and a smartphone. To take part, one must simply download the free application Crowdchupa and attach their phone to their bicycle. The device will then record footage of the streets and Artificial Intelligence will be used to identify damage that must be repaired.

To make this even more interesting, the Crowdchupa application will allow participants to earn money. The application features a map which depicts various objects (such as coins and berries) on the streets. Cyclists must drive over these virtual objects to collect them and earn money….(More)”.

The Open Data Policy Lab’s City Incubator

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

The GovLab: “Hackathons. Data Jams. Dashboards. Mapping, analyzing, and releasing open data. These are some of the essential first steps in building a data-driven culture in government. Yet, it’s not always easy to get data projects such as these off the ground. Governments often work in difficult situations under constrained resources. They have to manage various stakeholders and constituencies who have to be sold on the value that data can generate in their daily work.

Through the Open Data Policy Lab, The GovLab and Microsoft are providing various resources — such as the Data Stewards Academy, and the Third Wave of Open Data Toolkit — to support this goal. Still, we recognize that more tailored guidance is needed so cities can build new sustainable data infrastructure and launch projects that meet their policy goals.

Today, we’re providing that resource in the form of the Open Data Policy Lab’s City Incubator. A first-of-its-kind program to support data innovations in cities’ success and scale, the City Incubator will give 10 city officials access to the hands-on training and access to mentors to take their ideas to the next level. It will enable cutting edge work on various urban challenges and empower officials to create data collaboratives, data-sharing agreements, and other systems. This work is supported by Microsoft, Mastercard City Possible, Luminate, NYU CUSP and the Public Sector Network.

Our team is launching a call for ten city government intrapreneurs from around the world working on data-driven projects to apply to the City Incubator. Over the course of six months, participants will use start-up innovation and public sector program solving frameworks to develop and launch new data innovations. They will also receive support from a council of mentors from around the world.

Applications are due August 31, with an early application deadline of August 6 for applicants looking for feedback. Applicants are expected to present their idea and include information on the value their proposal will generate, the resources it will use, the partners it will involve, and the risks it might entail alongside other information in the form of a Data Innovation Canvas. Additional information can be found on the website here.”

The Data Innovation Canvas

Turning data into public value: European lessons on unleashing the transformative power of city data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Anushri Gupta and Luca Mora: “The age of big data and smart city technologies provides city governments with unprecedented potential for data-driven decision making. Committed to constantly developing new urban policy and supporting urban operations, city governments have been using data describing the functioning of urban infrastructure assets and public services for a very long time. However, the widespread diffusion of digital systems has now created a remarkable new window of opportunity.


With many digital solutions being introduced into the built environment to improve the sustainability of urban sociotechnical systems, enormous amounts of data are constantly generated at the city level, and at unprecedented speed. City surveillance cameras, government applications for public services, building automation systems, intelligent transport systems, and smart grids are some examples of digital technologies which are contributing to producing an exhaustive stream of data “that can be harnessed to provide urban intelligence and reshape the practices and processes of public administrations”, creating a fertile environment for innovation and entrepreneurial activity. When attempting to tap into these large streams of city data, however, the opportunity to deliver sustainable value is met with significant sociotechnical challenges, which undermine the capability of urban development actors….(More)”.

New Orleans is using sentiment analysis on federal relief funding

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Ryan Johnston at StateScoop: “New Orleans is using data and social-media analysis to gauge how residents want the city to spend $375 million in federal stimulus funding, while quelling concerns of corruption or misuse that still exist from the city’s Hurricane Katrina recovery, officials told StateScoop on Tuesday.

The city government is working with ZenCity, an Israeli data-analysis firm that trawls social media to better understand how residents feel about various issues, to research American Rescue Plan funding. New Orleans is set to receive $375 million in relief funding to stabilize its finances and, “directly address” the economic impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on the city, said Liana Elliot, the city’s deputy chief of staff. But many residents of the city are still wary of how the city squandered its Federal Emergency Management Agency funding following the natural disaster in 2005.

That caution became apparent almost immediately in online discourse, said Eyal Feder-Levy, ZenCity’s chief executive.

“We saw within the data that conversations about city budgets online in New Orleans were five-times more frequent than normal following the ARPA stimulus funding announcement,” Feder-Levy told StateScoop.

Elliot said what she heard about the budget in public didn’t match the conversations she was having with her colleagues in city government. Residents, she said, had an expectation that the money would help them, rather than go to city agencies…(More)”.