Global Resources and Promising Practices for Building and Refining Accessible and Inclusive Smart Cities from Darren Bates LLC.
According to the American Psychological Association, Citizen Engagement is “individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern.” In this context, the term citizen is not used in a legal sense but is understood in the broad sense of referring to all people in a society or country in an inclusive and nondiscriminatory way.
Citizen Engagement requires 1) two-way interaction between citizens and the private sector within the scope of smart city development (i.e., policy dialogue, programs, projects, and advisory services and analytics) that gives citizens an equitable stake in smart city decision-making and outcomes; 2) equitable access to information and data (accessible to all people including those that use assistive technologies); and most importantly, 3) closing the feedback loop (i.e., a two-way interaction providing a tangible response to citizen feedback) to meet citizens’ needs and expectations for change as created by their engagement and interaction.
Citizen engagement activates citizens and makes smart cities government more responsive and effective.
__________________________________________________
Urban Air Mobility must incorporate the needs of disabled citizens if the promise – and full market value – of advanced air mobility and urban air mobility systems are to be fully realized.
Read More
When urban planners envision their work for the 21st century, many often say it’ll begin with fixing the shortcomings put in place in the 20th century. However, the question remains whether professionals can make those changes quickly enough to avoid the worst consequences of their mistakes. Here are four urban planning fails that should be near the top of the list as professionals assess what to address first.
Read More
Simultaneously a health crisis, social crisis, and economic crisis, COVID-19 is laying bare how well cities are planned and managed. Its impact is showing the extent to which each city is able to function – or not – especially during times of crisis.
Read More
Citizen participation throughout the urban planning process can lead to the development of spaces and buildings that enable cities to develop urban environments that truly reflect people’s needs and preferences.
Read More
One of the principles we lift up in our report is to “build with, not for” affected communities. For technology to deliver on the promise of increased inclusion, design and implementation need to be grounded in the needs and priorities of communities. To do this equitably requires actively engaging and listening to residents throughout the process.
Read More
Around 68% of the global population might live in urban areas by 2050. Smart cities will likely be a part of this future, promising to make our lives more convenient, more secure and more sustainable. Mostly, the stakeholders of smart city projects are politicians, consultants, academics and tech companies. However, the most important group of stakeholders is often missing: the…
Read More
When the Amazon Kindle was released, their ebooks didn’t work with commonly used screen readers, making accessibility difficult for the blind community. The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) in the United States campaigned to change this for years, in vain. Then Amazon won a $30 million USD contract with the New York City Department of Education in 2015 to…
Read More
Public authorities, transport operators, civil society organisations and other public and private sector stakeholder in Greater Lyon have been successfully improving accessibility addressing it as a cross-cutting issue and investing substantially in creating a barrier-free and inclusive environment.
Read More
Cities are serious business – economic powerhouses with their own delicate ecosystems – but that doesn’t mean designing them shouldn’t be fun. In Barcelona they made it a game. Like a Spanish translation of SimCity, the popular ’90s video game for imagining cities that plays on Nintendo’s moustachioed mascot Mario, SuperBarrio offers real residents the chance to determine how their…
Read More
The top-10 was rounded out by Montreal (6th), Boston (7th), Melbourne (8th), Barcelona (9th) and Shanghai (10th). A total of 140 cities of all sizes from around the world were evaluated based on existing smart city rankings, news articles and online resources to measure their commitment to building a smart city. Each city was then given a score of one…
Read More
.page-header .entry-header “The role of smart cities is not to create a society of automation and alienation, but to bring communities together”. (Iain Stewart MP) In June, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smart Cities published a report outlining the findings of its recent inquiry into how the UK Government can support the expansion of smart cities and enable the…
Read More
How to foster dynamic civic participation, ignite citizen co-creation, and leverage human-centered urban design Lessons learned in the 20-year history of Smart Cities are testaments to the truth that successful and sustainable Smart Cities cannot be built solely upon the technology mainframe. Instead, cities must support and engage the broader community, prioritize and practice human-centered urban design, and provide diverse, accessible,…
Read More
Barcelona’s carritos call urban planners to take the streets and encourage a more inclusive form of urbanism. Photo by Raons Publiques Community participation has become a checklist item for any major urban development project. But what does community participation actually mean? What would it look like if we flipped the responsibility of engagement from citizens to designers? What if, instead…
Read More
Seattle wants to make it easier for residents to learn about developers’ plans in their area. “Often in the design process,” Stephen Fesler writes, “developments move to local design review boards where the proposals are seen for the first time and are well set in their direction having had little or no community feedback.” A new set of guidelines, in effect starting…
Read More
How co-creation is shaping the future of cities As the famous urban activist Jane Jacobs once wrote, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” It’s a truth that lies at the heart of a number of urban co-creation projects, which tap into the collective knowledge of citizens to…
Read More
In a time of urban transformation and digitalisation of smart cities, too little attention is sometime given to citizens. Citizen Focus Action Cluster strongly believes in citizens as fundamental actors for the regeneration and development of smart cities. Civic engagement, empowerment, participation and co-creation are at the basis of our advocacy approach since we acknowledge that citizen voice can be…
Read More
If you asked a ballroom full of government leaders what keeps them up at night, what do you think they would say? According to our latest “What’s Next in Digital Communications for Local Government” survey results, expanding citizen engagement, increasing digital accessibility and minimizing cybersecurity risks top their to-do lists. Nearly 370 municipal and county government officials across North America…
Read More
The only way to make the neighborhood of the future a more sustainable, livable, and equitable place is by hearing from Torontonians of all backgrounds and perspectives. That’s why we couldn’t be more excited that more than 1,000 people have said they’ll attend the first Sidewalk Toronto public roundtable next Tuesday, March 20. To help us hear from everyone, we’ve…
Read More
“A SMART CITY IS A CONNECTED CITY AND A CONNECTED CITY IS AN ACCESSIBLE AND INCLUSIVE CITY” The goal of Smart City citizen/community engagement is to meaningfully connect all citizens, the local developer community, artists and cultural institutions, entrepreneurs, start-ups, universities, and companies to improve the lives and the quality of life of all Smart City citizens. Darren Bates…
Read More
The goal of Smart City engagement is to meaningfully connect all citizens, the local developer community, artists and cultural institutions, entrepreneurs, start-ups, universities, and companies to improve the lives and the quality of life of all Smart City citizens. Darren Bates LLC In June 2015, the ministry of urban development came out with guidelines for a smart city. These guidelines…
Read More