How can governments boost citizen-led projects?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Justin Tan at GovInsider: “The visual treat of woks tossing fried carrot cake, the dull thuds of a chopper expertly dicing up a chicken, the fragrant lime aroma of grilled sambal stingray. The sensory playgrounds of Singapore’s hawker centres are close to many citizens’ homes and hearts, and have even recently won global recognition by UNESCO.

However, the pandemic has left many hawkers facing slow business. While restaurants and fast food chains have quickly caught on to food delivery services, many elderly hawkers were left behind in the digital race.

28 year-old Singaporean M Thirukkumaran developed an online community map called “Help Our Hawkers” that provides information on digitally-disadvantaged hawkers near users’ locations, such as opening hours and stall information. GovInsider caught up with him to learn how it was built and how governments can support fellow civic hackers…

Besides creating space for civic innovation, governments can step in to give particularly promising projects a boost with their resources and influence, Thiru says.

Most community-led projects need to rely on cloud services such as AWS, which can be expensive for a small team to bear, he explains. Government subsidies or grants may help to ease the cost for digital infrastructure.

In Thiru’s case, the map needed to be rolled out quickly to be useful. He chose to build his tool with Google Maps to speed up the process, as many users are already familiar with it.

Another way that governments can help is through getting more visibility to these community-led projects with their wide reach, Thiru suggests. Community projects commonly face a “cold start” dilemma. This arises where the community tool needs data for it to be useful, but citizens also hesitate to spend time on a tool if it is not useful in the first place.

Thiru jump started his tool by contributing a few stalls on his own. With more publicity with government campaigns, the process could be sped up considerably, he shares….(More)”.

America’s ‘Smart City’ Didn’t Get Much Smarter

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Aarian Marshall: “In 2016, Columbus, Ohio, beat out 77 other small and midsize US cities for a pot of $50 million that was meant to reshape its future. The Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge was the first competition of its kind, conceived as a down payment to jump-start one city’s adaptation to the new technologies that were suddenly everywhere. Ride-hail companies like Uber and Lyft were ascendant, car-sharing companies like Car2Go were raising their national profile, and autonomous vehicles seemed to be right around the corner.

“Our proposed approach is revolutionary,” the city wrote in its winning grant proposal, which pledged to focus on projects to help the city’s most underserved neighborhoods. It laid out plans to experiment with Wi-Fi-enabled kiosks to help residents plan trips, apps to pay bus and ride-hail fares and find parking spots, autonomous shuttles, and sensor-connected trucks.

Five years later, the Smart City Challenge is over, but the revolution never arrived. According to the project’s final report, issued this month by the city’s Smart Columbus Program, the pandemic hit just as some projects were getting off the ground. Six kiosks placed around the city were used to plan just eight trips between July 2020 and March 2021. The company EasyMile launched autonomous shuttles in February 2020, carrying passengers at an average speed of 4 miles per hour. Fifteen days later, a sudden brake sent a rider to the hospital, pausing service. The truck project was canceled. Only 1,100 people downloaded an app, called Pivot, to plan and reserve trips on ride-hail vehicles, shared bikes and scooters, and public transit.

The discrepancy between the promise of whiz-bang technology and the reality in Columbus points to a shift away from tech as a silver bullet, and a newer wariness of the troubles that web-based applications can bring to IRL streets. The “smart city” was a hard-to-pin-down marketing term associated with urban optimism. Today, as citizens think more carefully about tech-enabled surveillance, the concept of a sensor in every home doesn’t look as shiny as it once did….(More)”.

The City as a Commons Reloaded: from the Urban Commons to Co-Cities Empirical Evidence on the Bologna Regulation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Chapter by Elena de Nictolis and Christian Iaione: “The City of Bologna is widely recognized for an innovative regulatory framework to enable urban commons. The “Regulation on public collaboration for the Urban Commons” produced more than 400 pacts of collaboration and was adopted by more than 180 Italian cities so far.

The chapter presents an empirical assessment of 280 pacts (2014-2016). The analytical approach is rooted in political economy (Polany 1944; Ahn & Ostrom 2003) and quality of democracy analysis (Diamond & Morlino, 2005). It investigates whether a model of co-governance applied to urban assets as commons impacts on the democratic qualities of equality and rule of law at the urban level. The findings suggest suggests that legal recognition of the urban commons is not sufficient if not coupled with an experimentalist policymaking approach to institutionally redesign the City as a platform enabling collective action of multi-stakeholder partnerships that should be entrusted with the task to trigger neighborhood-based sustainable development. Neighborhood scale investments that aim to seed community economic ventures emerge as a possible way to overcome the shortcomings of the first policy experiments. They also suggest the need for more investigation by scholars on the inclusiveness and diversity facets related to the implementation of urban commons policies….(More)”

Metroverse

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

About: “Metroverse is an urban economy navigator built at the Growth Lab at Harvard University. It is based on over a decade of research on how economies grow and diversify and offers a detailed look into the specialization patterns of cities.

As a dynamic resource, the tool is continually evolving with new data and features to help answer questions such as:

  • What is the economic composition of my city?
  • How does my city compare to cities around the globe?
  • Which cities look most like mine?
  • What are the technological capabilities that underpin my city’s current economy?
  • Which growth and diversification paths does that suggest for the future?

As city leaders, job seekers, investors and researchers grapple with 21st century urbanization challenges, the answer to these questions are fundamental to understanding the potential of a city.

Metroverse delivers new insights on these questions by placing a city’s technological capabilities and knowhow at the heart of its growth prospects, where the range and nature of existing capabilities strongly influences how future diversification unfolds. Metroverse makes visible what a city is good at today to help understand what it can become tomorrow…(More)”.

Serving the Citizens—Not the Bureaucracy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Sascha Haselmayer: “In a volatile and changing world, one government function is in a position to address challenges ranging from climate change to equity to local development: procurement. Too long confined to a mission of cost savings and compliance, procurement—particularly at the local level, where decisions have a real and immediate impact on citizens—has the potential to become a significant catalyst of change.

In 2021 alone, cities around the globe will spend an estimated $6.4 trillion, or 8 percent of GDP, on procurement.1 Despite this vast buying power, city procurement faces several challenges, including resistance to the idea that procurement can be creative, strategic, economically formidable—and even an affirming experience for professional staff, citizens, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders.

Unfortunately, city procurement is far from ready to overcome these hurdles. Interviews with city leaders and procurement experts point to a common failing: city procurement today is structured to serve bureaucracies—not citizens.

City procurement is in a state of creative tension. Leaders want it to be a creative engine for change, but they underfund procurement teams and foster a compliance culture that leaves no room for much-needed creative and critical thinking. In short: procurement needs a mission.

In this report, we propose cities reimagine procurement as a public service, which can unlock a world of ideas for change and improvement. The vision presented in this report is based on six strategic measures that can help cities get started. The path forward involves not only taking concrete actions, such as reducing barriers to participation of diverse suppliers, but also adopting a new mindset about the purpose and potential of procurement. By doing so, cities can reduce costs and develop creative, engaging solutions to citywide problems. We also offer detailed insights, ideas, and best practices for how practitioners can realize this new vision.

Better city procurement offers the promise of a vast return on investment. Cost savings stand to exceed 15 percent across the board, and local development may benefit by multiplying the participation of small and disadvantaged businesses. Clarity of mission and the required professional skills can lead to new, pioneering innovations. Technology and the right data can lead to sustained performance and better outcomes. A healthy supplier ecosystem can deliver new supplier talent that is aligned with the goals of the city to reduce carbon emissions, serve complex needs, and diversify the supply chain.

All of this not in service of the bureaucracy but of the citizen….(More)”.

Dutch cities to develop European mobility data standard

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Cities Today: “Five Dutch cities – Amsterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven, Rotterdam and The Hague – are collaborating to establish a new standard for the exchange of data between cities and shared mobility operators.

In partnership with the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water, the five cities, known as the G-5, will develop the City Data Standard – Mobility (CDS-M). The platform will allow information on mobility patterns, including the use of shared vehicles, traffic flows and parking, to be shared in compliance with Europe’s strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

So far, the working group has been focused on internal capacity-building, and members are set to delve into key thematic  areas from early June.

Speaking to Cities Today, Ross Curzon-Butler, Chairperson of the City of Amsterdam’s Data Specification for Mobility Working Group and Chief Technology Officer at Dutch start-up Cargoroo, said:“The key thing is about making sure the data is accessible to cities in a way that is proportional and compliant with GDPR.

“What we have to recognise is that cities are going to ask transport firms for data. This is coming, whether we like it or not. We therefore have the impetus to make sure that the data requested is in a standardised way, and that there’s a standardised understanding of why they’re being asked for that data.”…

Curzon-Butler sees the new standard as complementing, rather than competing with, the Open Mobility Foundation’s Mobility Data Specification (MDS), which is already used in several European cities, including Lisbon….

The CDS-M consists of the “standard”, the technical design, and the “agreement”, that details which organisations are involved in data processing. The agreement framework is now under development and will be established by a working group comprising mobility operators, urban planners, data scientists, code developers, data protection officers, and security experts.

“If you’re a city, or a data processor or a transport operator and you start asking people for different data points and asking for it in different formats, and across different standards, it becomes unmanageable,” Curzon-Butler said.

“And the development time in all of these things is already high enough, so what we’re trying to do is normalise the data flow as much as possible, so that everyone in that data chain doesn’t have these huge overheads that just grow and grow, where you’re then having to manage multiple dialects and standards and trying to understand ‘who’s got what data and what are they really doing with it?’.

“And in Europe we have GDPR, which is a very serious regulation that we have to be very mindful and aware of.”

He referenced a recent case where the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) fined the City of Enschede €600,000 (US$730,000) for its use of Wi-Fi sensors to measure the number of people in the city centre.

It is understood to be the first time the regulator has imposed a fine on a government body under the GDPR but the case could have implications for cities well beyond the Netherlands. Enschede is appealing the decision…(More)”

Introducing the AI Localism Repository

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

The GovLab: “Artificial intelligence is here to stay. As this technology advances—both in its complexity and ubiquity across our societies—decision-makers must address the growing nuances of AI regulation and oversight. Early last year, The GovLab’s Stefaan Verhulst and Mona Sloane coined the term “AI localism” to describe how local governments have stepped up to regulate AI policies, design governance frameworks, and monitor AI use in the public sector. 

While top-level regulation remains scant, many municipalities have taken to addressing AI use in their communities. Today, The GovLab is proud to announce the soft launch of the AI Localism Repository. This living platform is a curated collection of AI localism initiatives across the globe categorized by geographic regions, types of technological and governmental innovation in AI regulation, mechanisms of governance, and sector focus. 

We invite visitors to explore this repository and learn more about the inventive measures cities are taking to control how, when, and why AI is being used by public authorities. We also welcome additional case study submissions, which can be sent to us via Google Form….(More)”

Creating Public Value using the AI-Driven Internet of Things

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Gwanhoo Lee: “Government agencies seek to deliver quality services in increasingly dynamic and complex environments. However, outdated infrastructures—and a shortage of systems that collect and use massive real-time data—make it challenging for the agencies to fulfill their missions. Governments have a tremendous opportunity to transform public services using the “Internet of Things” (IoT) to provide situationspecific and real-time data, which can improve decision-making and optimize operational effectiveness.

In this report, Professor Lee describes IoT as a network of physical “things” equipped with sensors and devices that enable data transmission and operational control with no or little human intervention. Organizations have recently begun to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies to drive even greater value from IoT applications. AI/ML enhances the data analytics capabilities of IoT by enabling accurate predictions and optimal decisions in new ways. Professor Lee calls this AI/ML-powered IoT the “AI-Driven Internet of Things” (AIoT for short hereafter). AIoT is a natural evolution of IoT as computing, networking, and AI/ML technologies are increasingly converging, enabling organizations to develop as “cognitive enterprises” that capitalize on the synergy across these emerging technologies.

Strategic application of IoT in government is in an early phase. Few U.S. federal agencies have explicitly incorporated IoT in their strategic plan, or connected the potential of AI to their evolving IoT activities. The diversity and scale of public services combined with various needs and demands from citizens provide an opportunity to deliver value from implementing AI-driven IoT applications.

Still, IoT is already making the delivery of some public services smarter and more efficient, including public parking, water management, public facility management, safety alerts for the elderly, traffic control, and air quality monitoring. For example, the City of Chicago has deployed a citywide network of air quality sensors mounted on lampposts. These sensors track the presence of several air pollutants, helping the city develop environmental responses that improve the quality of life at a community level. As the cost of sensors decreases while computing power and machine learning capabilities grow, IoT will become more feasible and pervasive across the public sector—with some estimates of a market approaching $5 trillion in the next few years.

Professor Lee’s research aims to develop a framework of alternative models for creating public value with AIoT, validating the framework with five use cases in the public domain. Specifically, this research identifies three essential building blocks to AIoT: sensing through IoT devices, controlling through the systems that support these devices, and analytics capabilities that leverage AI to understand and act on the information accessed across these applications. By combining the building blocks in different ways, the report identifies four models for creating public value:

  • Model 1 utilizes only sensing capability.
  • Model 2 uses sensing capability and controlling capability.
  • Model 3 leverages sensing capability and analytics capability.
  • Model 4 combines all three capabilities.

The analysis of five AIoT use cases in the public transport sector from Germany, Singapore, the U.K., and the United States identifies 10 critical success factors, such as creating public value, using public-private partnerships, engaging with the global technology ecosystem, implementing incrementally, quantifying the outcome, and using strong cybersecurity measures….(More)”.

Practical Lessons for Government AI Projects

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Godofredo Jr Ramizo: “Governments around the world are launching projects that embed artificial intelligence (AI) in the delivery of public services. How can government officials navigate the complexities of AI projects and deliver successful outcomes? Using a review of the existing literature and interviews with senior government officials from Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore who have worked on Smart City and similar AI-driven projects, this paper demonstrates the diversity of government AI projects and identifies practical lessons that help safeguard public interest. I make two contributions. First, I show that we can classify government AI projects based on their level of importance to government functions and the level of organisational resources available to them. These two dimensions result in four types of AI projects, each with its own risks and appropriate strategies. Second, I propose five general lessons for government AI projects in any field, and outline specific measures appropriate to each of the aforementioned types of AI projects….(More)”.

The Business of City Hall

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Kenneth R. Ahern: “Compared to the federal government, the average citizen in the U.S. has far greater interaction with city governments, including policing, health services, zoning laws, utilities, schooling, and transportation. At the regional level, it is city governments that provide the infrastructure and services that facilitate agglomeration economies in urban areas. However, there is relatively little empirical evidence on the operations of city governments as economic entities. To overcome deficiencies in traditional datasets, this paper amasses a novel, hand-collected dataset on city government finances to describe the functions, expenses, and revenues of the largest 39 cities in the United States from 2003 to 2018. First, city governments are large, with average revenues equivalent to the 78th percentile of U.S. publicly traded firms. Second, cities collect an increasingly large fraction of revenues through direct user fees, rather than taxes. By 2018, total charges for services equal tax revenue in the median city. Third, controlling for city fixed effects, population, and personal income, large city governments shrunk by 15% between 2009 and 2018. Finally, the growth rate of city expenses is more sensitive to population growth, while the growth rate of city revenues is more sensitive to income. These sensitivities lead smaller, poorer cities’ expenses to grow faster than their revenues….(More)”.