One of the more difficult problems a public policy or urban
planner encounters is public participation.
Planning when to schedule meeting so people can show up uncovers bias
when certain demographic groups cannot attend leading to uneven participation
in the decision making process.
Furthermore, sometimes policy makers must make decision for a group of
people of which they know very little about.
For example, choosing where bicycle rental stations should be put may
not be a subject that policy creators have a lot of knowledge about. Therefore through the use of crowdsourcing
peoples individual opinions can be submitted without a disorganized meeting
with polarized individuals drowning out general public.
Crowdsourcing is only the basic principle that makes the
public participation part easier, there is so much versatility that it can be
and is being applied to a variety of community issues. For example, the application SeeClickFix allows for problems
like potholes, downed road signs, or even bulky trash pickup to be reported
online through a computer or smart phone device. Many cities have programs like this some even
their own smart phone application. A
more environmental turn on crowdsourcing is evident with websites like Urban Forest Map which documents where trees
are and what species. This helps provide
individuals within the community with information on their own urban forest
promoting awareness and if they decide to plant a tree the ability to register
it for professionals to see.
Collaborative planning can provide citizens the ability to
right a vision for the future of their own communities. This is generally a weighty process because
of the ability to gather people’s preferences and ideas and then reach an
understanding among the expert decision makers.
Using the internet to gather information from community members in a
quick accurate lessens the load on local governments to collect data and allows
them to focus on writing a policy that appeases the majority.
No comments:
Post a Comment