Tag Archives: Gov 2.0

Information Techology and Local Sustainability Planning

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Kevin Desouza and Joe Schilling co-authored an exploration of local sustainability planning in the PM Magazine of ICMA. The article, available online, provides a preliminary snapshot of local government sustainability plans and discusses ways that information technologies can enhance their design and implementation.

These are just a few of the questions we are exploring at the Metropolitan Institute’s Sustainability Planning Lab. Virginia Tech’s Sustainability Planning Lab is continuing to inventory, catalog, and assess the current planning landscape. Starting with a preliminary list of 240 cities, we found that 84 of these places did not have a true sustainability plan, but instead relied on an assortment of plans and programs.

Information technology plays a pivotal role in advancing sustainability. Instead of relying on a small cohort of experts to interpret residents’ needs and desires, through crowd sourcing and modeling solutions, residents themselves develop and even implement solutions to urban issues.

Strong Cities, Strong Communities Fellowship Program Twitter Town Hall TOMORROW

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On February 28 at 3:00 p.m. EST, the US Housing and Urban Development (HUD )Secretary Donovan and Assistant Secretary Poethig will host a Twitter town hall to launch the Strong Cities, Strong Communities Fellowship Program. The event will be streamed live on HUD’s website.

The Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech is pleased to be partnering with the German Marshall Fund (GMF) and Cleveland State University (CSU) for HUD’s SC2 Fellowship Program. Over the next few months, the GMF will manage the national selection process in search of a highly-skilled group of mid-career professionals who will work in  the seven pilot cities for two years.  In the coming months, MI and its partners will build the support network for the fellows and the host local governments through a series of workshops, webinars, and mentoring sessions. Underwriting for the fellowships is provided by a generous gift from the Rockefeller Foundation.

During the Twitter town hall, Secretary Donovan will provide more details about how you can apply for the SC2 Fellowship Program and be a part of this new generation of innovative leaders committed to public service. We will tweet about eligibility, timing, selection criteria, and other details you will want to know to apply. The event will be streamed live on HUD’s website. Twitter users will be able to ask questions in advance and during the Town Hall using the hashtag #AskSOHUD.

SC2 is about effective government and fostering the type of change that can positively impact communities. By creating long-lasting partnerships with local governments, philanthropies, academic institutions, business, and non-profits, we can help revitalize and strengthen America’s cities.

Metropolitan Institute to present at IGU Commission on Geography and Governance Annual Conference

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Kevin Desouza and Lauren Bulka will present at the IGU Commission on Geography of Governance annual conference set for April 2012 in Lisbon, Portugal. The International Geographic Union (IGU) is a network of scholars that focuses on the relationship between geography and governance, particularly in government/administration structures and processes. This year’s annual conference will focus on two main themes: “Citizen e-Participation in Urban Governance,” and the “Impact of Economic and Financial Crisis on Local Governance.” Kevin’s paper, co-authored by Akshay Bhagwatwar, “Citizen Apps and Urban Governance: Understanding the Landscape of Apps and their Impacts” focuses on examining the range of citizen applications (‘citizen apps’) targeted to solve urban issues and their ensuing impacts on planning, decision-making, problem solving, and urban governance. The paper looks broadly at citizen apps that address a wide range of urban issues from those that solve public transportation challenges to those advance management public utilities and services and even public safety. Lauren’s paper “Impacts of Inter-Municipality Cooperation on Small City Regeneration,” will focus on the impact of economic and financial crises on urban regeneration in small deindustrialized cities; looking specifically at the role inter-municipal cooperation could play in mitigating negative effects. The paper will use an in-depth case study of Clarksburg, West Virginia to analyze and propose innovative solutions for alleviating and addressing these impacts. For more information about these papers, please contact us.

 

Citizen Apps for Solving Urban Problems: New article in Journal of Urban Technology

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Kevin Desouza, has a new article accepted for publication in the Journal of Urban Technology. Co-authored with Akshay Bhagwatwar (Kelley School of Business, Indiana University), this paper, entitled “Opening up Information for Tackling Complex Urban Problems:  A Study of Citizen Apps,” looks at how citizen apps are employed to solve complex urban problems. The Metropolitan Institute will build on this paper as it continues work on the IBM Center for the Business of Government grant.

Abstract:

Tackling complex urban problems requires us to examine and leverage diverse sources of information. Today, cities of all kinds and sizes capture a large amount of information in real-time. Data is captured on transportation patterns, electricity and water consumption, citizen use of government services (e.g. parking meters), and even on weather events. Through open data initiatives, government agencies are making information available to citizens. In turn, citizens are building applications that exploit this information to solve local urban problems. Citizens are also building platforms where they can share information regarding government services. Information that was previously unavailable is now being used to gauge quality of services, choose services, and report illegal and unethical behaviors (e.g. requesting bribes). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the range of citizen applications (‘citizen apps’) targeted to solve urban issues and their ensuing impacts on planning, decision-making, problem solving, and urban governance. We examine citizen apps that address a wide range of urban issues from those that solve public transportation challenges to those advance management public utilities and services and even public safety.

Citation: Desouza, K.C., and Bhagwatwar, A. “Opening up Information for Tackling Complex Urban Problems:  A Study of Citizen Apps,” Journal of Urban Technology, Forthcoming.

Letter From the Director – Wrap-Up of the First Semester

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My first semester as Director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech (MI) is drawing to a close. Similar to my 60 day update, I would like to share with you selected achievements and strategic activities of the institute. The institute is now home to a number of blossoming research efforts, including a policy informatics network, expanding work on citizen engagement, critical looks at development patterns in distressed cities, and the local and global patterns of community resiliency.

Roundup on Grants and Proposals
We continue to diversify our funded research portfolio. Joe Schilling led the Metropolitan Institute’s effort to partner with the German Marshall Fund and Cleveland State to manage, mentor, and evaluate a new executive fellowship program as part of the Obama Administration’s Strong Cities, Strong Communities initiative which seeks to build capacity in six economically distressed cities—Cleveland, Detroit, Memphis, New Orleans, Fresno, and Chester, PA. Joe and his colleagues at Cleveland State will assess the impacts from the fellowship while mentoring roughly 30 professionals over a 3-year period. Maggie Cowell and I received a seed grant from the Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment to build a research program on designing resilient networks for local communities. Read more about the project here. We received an IBM Center for the Business of Government grant to study the role of citizen apps and its influence on governance. Read more about the project here. We are hoping to hear positive responses on several grant proposals we currently have under review.

New and Emerging Partnerships
An institute’s strategic alliances are one of its most valuable assets. Building winning partnerships takes time and effort, and the payoffs for both parties are not immediate. We have spent a great deal of time and effort to connect the Metropolitan Institute with our industry, non-profit, and government friends. We have formed a partnership with ACT for Alexandria, a community foundation dedicated to stimulating philanthropic giving on the local level within Alexandria, VA. The ACTion Alexandria project is a new citizen engagement platform with interactive tools to make it easier for residents to take an active role in addressing community problems. The institute will partner with Act for Alexandria and use the ACTion platform to design and test practices that encourage citizen participation using online tools. Read more on this project here. Tentative collaboration agreements are in place or being cultivated with a number of other organizations including the American Red Cross, the US Green Building Council, the International for City/County Managers Association (ICMA), and City and County of San Francisco, among others. Within Virginia Tech, we continue to work closely with our partners in the Northern Capital Region and Blacksburg on a number of collaborative efforts.

Please continue reading for updates on our work in Community Resiliency, Policy Informatics and exciting international outreach and our vision of the future.

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IBM Center for the Business of Government: Citizen Apps as a Democratizing Technology

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The Metropolitan Institute is pleased to announce a new grant from the IBM Center for the Business of Government for our research project, Citizen Apps as a Democratizing Technology:  Challenges and Opportunities for Federal Agencies. This project will be conducted as part of the institute’s policy informatics portfolio with Kevin Desouza serving as the Principle Investigator.

Most US federal agencies have embraced President Obama’s vision for 1) greater transparency, 2) increased citizen participation, and 3) greater collaboration. A critical outcome of these initiatives is the willingness of federal agencies to engage with citizens around open-data initiatives and the creation of technology for solving public policy problems – ‘citizen apps.’ We are witnessing an increasing proliferation of ‘citizen apps,’ i.e. applications designed by citizens and developers to solve public policy challenges. Federal agencies are not only opening up data reservoirs, but are also incentivizing the development of citizen apps through competitions. In this research project, we propose to study citizen apps and the federal programs that fostered (incentivized) their creation.

There are many reasons why it is beneficial to involve citizens in the governance process. One, it opens up problem solving opportunities where citizens can participate. Second, it serves as a forum to increase the diversity of thought and knowledge brought to a problem. This increases the potential for innovation by engaging many minds to solve complex problems. Citizen participation leads to greater collective intelligence and hopefully more robust solutions for social issues. Third, it allows citizens to solve problems that a government agency might be challenged to address. Finally, it empowers the vision set forth by former President John F. Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Citizen app programs normally come in two broad flavors. One set of citizen app programs are fueled by government open-data initiatives. In these cases, a government agency makes data available to the public and the public in turn responds by using this data creatively to generate technologies (the apps) that better the lives of citizens. The second set of citizen app programs is where a government agency issues a challenge or problem to the public. The public then responds by building solutions to the challenge. In this case, the government may incentivize the development of the apps through issue of recognition prizes and funding. This success of both types of citizen app programs depends on the dynamic collaboration of government agencies, app developers, and the citizenry. To date, our knowledge on what makes for successful collaboration among these three players is limited.

There are a number of design considerations that need to be addressed when building citizen app programs from the nature of incentives provided to goals of the apps, the motivations that drive citizens to create the apps, and how (and where) to deploy the apps, the involvement by the agency (e.g. staff time to interact with app developers), level and amount of data availability, and creation of problem-solving communities and forums, among others. In this research project, we will uncover design considerations that government executives need to bear in mind as they initiate citizen app programs. We will also compare and contrast citizen app programs to arrive at a set of best practices by looking at critical success factors that led to citizen app programs that were highly successful.

Our research project will thoroughly inventory and study the range of citizen apps to understand the typology of the apps, the data they use, the problems they address, the motivation of the designers, the usage by citizens, and the impact on government and governance. We propose to discover and define the inter-relations between the government agencies, the app developers, and the citizens. While our focus will be on studying citizen apps generated out of programs commissioned by the federal government, we will also look at programs started by progressive states (e.g. New York, California, etc).

The results of the final report will benefit public sector government executives, public managers, and the public-at-large in several ways: 1) it will enable government executives to avoid common pitfalls when incentivizing citizen app programs (for e.g. placing emphasis on the frontend, i.e. the creation of apps, and ignoring the more challenging aspect of ensuring that the apps are diffused into the agency’s work practices or to citizens); 2) it will enable public managers to understand the landscape of citizen apps, the motivations of citizens who create them, and the factors that drive their usage; and 3) it will enable federal agencies to better engage citizens into the policy setting process through supporting technology development thereby increasing the chances of more effective solution generation for policy problems.