Recognizing that current top-down smart city solutions fail to address urban complexities and citizen needs, as a part of Open and Big Data Management course, I’ve decided to write about the role that VGI plays in city infrastructure and its influence on urban service experiences.
Today’s hunter-gatherers engage in almost every pastime thanks to a number of technological advances, including popular mobile phones and free apps. These smart devices and citizen’s data might be utilised for the benefit of all, by collecting VGI and using it to improve the city’s service infrastructure to better meet citizen needs.
By exploring the role of VGI, it has been found that VGI is fitted for the purpose as it offers mechanisms to examine behaviors, trends, and problems that may arise or are already present in a city, and by enabling VGI collection via a government app that pairs smart devices and wearables, the app not only increased government accessibility and reach of the previously unengaged citizens, but has illustrated how VGI may as readily be co-opted by political goals as it is in informing policy. However, even with the high promises of VGI in theory, it could still end up being under-used in practice due to public management approaches.
Read the essay here.
