Data Is Enabling Citizens to Coproduce Solutions with City Hall
Government’s bedrock authority for action derives from elections which is a process by which the public chooses an individual to hold public office. But an election never provides sufficient direction to decide the thousands of policy questions that a city government must resolve. Thanks to the rapidly developing new urban science and data analysis, citizens are enabled to coproduce urban solutions with city hall.
The big data generated by city such as trash collection, transportation gives the data analysts enough information to predict and make solutions to corresponding issues. And the well-visualized data provides an easier way for the public to clearly understand the problem and make their decisions. Government’s monopoly on information and authority is no longer existed. The most powerful weapon for citizens to coproduce solutions with city hall is the urban data science.
If the above way how the citizens participate the public issues comes true, we are in fact making micro-elections for each policy question everyday! Thinking about these, Metropolitan Transportation Authority changes the timetable of subways according to the real time demands, New York City Department of Sanitation smartly collects trash by the help of real time prediction of trash distribution. What the citizens do everyday is recorded by the city data and is reflected by the varieties of the policies. In this way, data is helping the city government better organizing its institutions and protecting the power of the citizens from certain groups and politicians.
