7 Amazing Apps that will Empower Citizens
Up until recently, mobile apps’ biggest impact has been on our lives as consumers.
Amazon has made it dead simple to buy books online. Etsy has made it easier for us to buy hand made, vintage, or crafted items with a few clicks. Spotify provide millions of songs at your fingertip.
Our smartphones are so crucial to our everyday lives. Most of us never leave home without their smartphone.
Startups are now taking full advantage of this trend to overhaul the urban experience of city dwellers. And a few cities are slowly embracing the mobile app revolution and creating better experiences for urbanites around the world.
Imagine a quick and simple way to find a parking space downtown. Imagine being able to borrow tools from someone in your neighbourhood within 30 minutes so that you can build your kids a tree house. Imaging pulling-up a map showing ripe fruit trees ready for picking and stopping to pick a few fruits on your way back from work.
These are just a small sample of mobile apps and services that are being launched each year in cities.
PEERBY — LINK
Need a hammer, a tent or a badminton racket? Amsterdam-based Peerby enables users to share all of those items and much more in the way neighbours did when cities were small enough that everyone new each other. Peerby allows users to share or request items from people in their neighborhood online, via their mobile or social media networking sites.
SOCIAL CYCLIST — LINK
Social Cyclist is a free app developed by Social Bicycles. With Social Cyclist, riders can record and share bike routes, find the nearest bike share station and request new bike parking for their community. City or bike advocacy organization can get access to social ridership data to help with planning in their cities.
Unlike Uber and Airbnb, Djump and Peerby are non-monetized apps that simply focus on the concept of the sharing economy.
RIPE NEAR ME — LINK
From Adelaide Australia, Ripe Near Me maps edible plants growing on public land and food being grown by citizens so that users can locate, share, swap and sell produce. Ripe Near Me started because both co-founders noticed that many citrus trees scattered about the suburbs were full of fruits that nobody was eating, yet local stores were selling plenty of imported fruits.
DJUMP — LINK
Djump is a mobile application that helps you quickly get around the city thanks to a fresh community of handpicked drivers. Request a driver, get a ride from someone, and make a donation. Today Djump is illuminating the need for personal cars by connecting thousands of drivers and riders in Brussells and Paris.
MIND MY BUSINESS — LINK
Mind My Business from New York City is a mobile application that leverages open data to and predictive analytics to update small, local shopkeepers on what’s happening in their areas, from upcoming road works to recent complaints by nearby residents.
Mind My Business utilizes targeted geolocated data to give small, local business owners actionable information on things outside or around their business that may have some effect. It is currently only available in NYC but it should be launched in Chicago and San Francisco.
BLUE PARKING — LINK
Blue Parking is an app from Spain that allows you to find parking and make payment using your mobile device.
ZIPCAR — LINK
Zipcar is a car rental company but instead of renting a car by the day, Zipcar charges by the hour. Zipcar members can reserve cars online or by phone at any time. Using an access card, users can unlock the door, find the keys located inside the car and go for a ride.
Zipcar’s fleet of cars is varied. Choose from a Mini Cooper to large Ford Vans and a pickup truck. Booking a car is easy. The app checks your location, tells you the location, make, model and features of each car as well as the price.
CONCLUSION
Apps and technology can help cities, local governments, and citizens save money and be more efficient. Instead of owning a power drill, you can now borrow one from your neighbor in less than half hour.
Mobile is changing how cities operates just as profoundly as the Internet has transformed businesses. That said, for cites to deliver big — and for urban dwellers to make the most of it — cities must decide to empower citizens.
Smart phones are smart. Apps are powerful. But without empowering citizens with the ability to provide insight and action at the point of citizen interaction, cities will be left imagining possibilities without fully realizing any of them.
What’s your favourite city app? I would love to hear which app you use often. Share your apps in the comments or on Twitter @simonlapointe.
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Originally published at civicly.tumblr.com.
