Modern administrative data—from 311 and 911 calls to building permit applications to Tweets—offer a detailed view of events and conditions across the city.

• census
• cities

• Civic data
• Urban planning
• Narrative tech

The Beirut Built Environment Database is a platform gathering geolocalised social, environmental, and economic information on building activity in the Greater Beirut Area.

• cities
• landlord
• land

• Civic data
• Civic maps

The Beirut Urban Lab is launching a platform that documents the processes and mechanisms that generate housing precarity in today’s Beirut.

• housing
• No poverty
• landlord

• Civic maps

Between March and September 2021, BUL researchers identified around 80 NGOs that participated in shelter repair within the neighborhoods severely affected by the August 2020 port blast. The data and findings are presented through a recent mapping output on the Beirut Urban Observatory.

• cities

• Watchdogging and transparency
• Civic maps
• Disaster response and humanitarian tech

We manufacture embedded city maintenance machines for city civic and green agencies to upgrade to new standards of service to the citizens.

• streetscape

• Govtech
• Emerging tech
• Smart Cities and sensors

Since there's not yet a clear home for civic tech on Mastodon, I've rounded up some of the more relevant servers for civic tech's digital migrants to gather.

• guides
• Mastodon

• Meet the others
• Mastodon

In its latest program to support local efforts to leverage data in community change, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute (Urban) awarded a total of $1.5 million to 38 organizations across the US and its territories through the Using Local Data to Address Structural Racism grant program.

• racial equity

• Civic data
• Data science for social good

Was 4 pilot projects in European cities

• cities

The Wildcard Workbook: A Practical Guide for Jokering Forum Theatre is a resource for facilitators of all kinds looking for new ways to bring fun, creativity, and critical thinking into their work!

• books

• Books
• Artistic interventions

A digital twin solution for buildings and urban planning that works with Autodesk

• Urban planning
• Digital twins

ClearRoad provides cloud-based solutions to keep roads well-maintained and well-managed Schedule a demo

• cities

• Urban planning

A collection of essays edited by Ana Brandusescu and Jess Reia featuring essays from participants of the AI in the City: Building Civic Engagement and Public Trust symposium that took place remotely on February 10, 2022.

• cities

• Artificial Intelligence
• Emerging tech
• Participatory democracy

A project to verify media around the 2019 elections

• Media
• Fight disinformation
• Factchecking

teyit.org is working to ensure that internet users can access correct information by verifying in many areas from widely known mistakes, suspicious information on the agenda of social media, claims brought up by the media, or urban legends.

• Media
• Fight disinformation
• Factchecking

When misinformation obscures the truth and readers don’t know what to trust, Snopes.com’s fact checking and original, investigative reporting lights the way to evidence-based and contextualized analysis.

• Media
• Fight disinformation
• Factchecking

An intelligent urban measurement project that’s changing our understanding of cities and urban life. The Array of Things (AoT) is a collaborative effort among scientists, universities, federal and local government, industry partners, and communities to collect real-time data on urban environment, infrastructure, and activity for research and public use. AoT uses an open intelligent sensing and edge computing platform called Waggle, developed at Argonne National Laboratory. AoT was funded primarily by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

• air quality
• cities

• Smart Cities and sensors

To recognize outstanding Smart Cities projects, IDC launched its Smart City North America Awards (SCNAA).

• Smart Cities and sensors
• Awards and prizes

In 2019, Executive Order 50 created the Algorithms Management and Policy Officer (AMPO) role. This role is unique in urban governance and is intended to help provide protocols and information about the systems and tools City agencies use to make decisions.

• Govtech

City Possible™ is a new model for urban innovation in which a global network of cities, businesses, academics and communities work together to make the world’s cities more inclusive and sustainable.

• Consumer watchdogging

Plan✕ is a platform for creating and publishing digital planning services. It aims to make planning less hard work, for everyone.

• cities

• Urban planning

A centralized platform for traffic volume and collision data by Code for Canada

• mass transit
• mobility

• Data visualization
• Urban planning

The Infrastructure Accessibility Index - IAT© highlights areas with ample services and easy pedestrian access to different types of infrastructure. IAT© is based on the "15-minute city" idea, which says that all important facilities and services for urban dwellers should be easily accessible within a 15-minute timeframe. We assess infrastructure accessibility by surveying the facilities reachable within 15 minutes on foot, by car and by public transport.

• cities

• Civic data
• Indicators

Tonika Lewis Johnson’s Folded Map™ Project visually connects residents who live at corresponding addresses on the North and South Sides of Chicago.

• racial equity

• Civic maps
• Artistic interventions

The Sage project will design and build a new kind of national-scale reusable cyberinfrastructure to enable AI at the edge.

• air quality
• cities

• Smart Cities and sensors

Circular City Studio, a program established with support from NYCEDC, encourages entrepreneurs to reimagine urban environments and help New York City address short, medium, and long term challenges facing our city. The 2020 iteration empowers engineers, inventors, and entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds to pilot technologies that support NYC's sustainability agenda and rethink energy, waste, and recycling systems in New York City. Selected teams will deploy products and services in testbeds around Manhattan and Brooklyn, working with program partners, domain experts, and research institutions to deliver solutions and introduce relevant technologies that can support community needs.

• Climate action

• Incubators

The leading news platform on urban mobility and innovation, reaching an international audience of city leaders.

• cities

• News and blogs

OneCity allows developers and businesses to identify, evaluate and compare investment opportunities that align with official spatial strategiesWe deliver current information and analysis on a single platform, incorporating data from over thirty qualified sourcesOneCity can be integrated into Local Authority GIS systems, to streamline and support land use planning

• cities

• Civic data
• Mapping tools
• Urban planning

The cities in this Atlas represent the vanguard of urban governments that are hosting tests, developing their own autonomous vehicle (AV) pilots, making plans and policy, and monitoring developments in AV technologies, uses, and markets.

• mobility
• cities

• Emerging tech
• Hardware
• Automated Vehicles

Arquitectura, Arte y Diseño del Tecnológico de Monterrey; es un espacio queofrece información actual y útil que permite el análisis, medición yevaluación de las ciudades mexicanas, para incidir en la planeación y latoma de decisiones que contribuirán a mejorar la calidad de vida urbana delas personas.

• cities
• mobility

• Indicators

NYCommons helps New Yorkers impact decisions about public land and buildings in their neighborhoods. It is a collaboration between Common Cause/NY, the Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center, and 596 Acres.

• land

• Civic maps

In the winter of 2020-2021 Center for Urban Pedagogy collaborated with eight Teaching Artists to create civically-engaged art activities to do at home!

• Civic literacy
• Artistic interventions

Documenting the use of defensive urban design in the Greater Toronto Area and beyond.

• cities
• place-based

• Artistic interventions
• Archives

Digital Civics is a long-term research initiative led by Open Lab, Newcastle University that is exploring how digital technologies can empower citizens and communities.

• Research and policy centers
• Urban planning
• Assistive and Accessible Tech

The 2021 Global Mayors Challenge is the farthest reaching, most ambitious to date. After uncovering the 50 most innovative urban solutions in the wake of COVID-19, the Challenge will award 15 grand prize winners $1 million each—to help cities implement their breakthrough ideas and, ultimately, to spread those ideas to other cities on a global scale.

• cities

• Get funding
• Challenges

596 Acres built tools to help neighbors see vacant lots as opportunities and create needed green spaces that become focal points for community organizing and civic engagement.

• land
• cities

• Graveyard
• Specific campaigns

Atlascope is a tool for exploring historic urban maps in metropolitan Boston and telling stories about how places have changed over time.

• history

• Civic maps

We take planning proposals out of city hall and onto their urban context, seamlessly communicating projects with a large, diverse audience to win community support while crowdsourcing stakeholders' feedback.

• apps
• cities

• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
• Urban planning

Terreform ONE is a nonprofit architecture and urban design research group. We endeavor to combat the extinction of planetary species through pioneering acts of design.

• buildings
• Sustainable cities and communities

• Design

Numina measures all kinds of curb-level activity. Anonymously and in aggregate, Numina delivers the volume counts, paths, and traffic behaviors of travelers and objects in streets.

• cities
• streetscape
• mobility

• The Tech
• Civic data
• Emerging tech

Using ICT for Co-Creation of inclusive public Places

• public space

• Engagement tech
• Ideation

Reporting management software for municipal technical services

• apps

• Communicating with the government
• Issue reporting

New Cities is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to improving life in cities, and is focused on people, places and policies. We bring together a global network of public and private sector leaders and Urban Tech innovators to foster results-oriented collaboration. We also produce actionable research that can be implemented by decision-makers across sectors.

Meeting of the Minds is a global thought leadership network and knowledge sharing platform focused on urban sustainability. Meeting of the Minds brings together leaders from multiple sectors and diverse geographies to share ideas and work together to shape a common agenda. Events include monthly webinars, in-person workshops, pop-up events and an annual summit held each fall.

The challenges of 21st century city-making require innovative methods that incorporate the complexity of today’s rapidly urbanising world. Traditional ways of urban planning and design — top-down and singlehanded — are already making way for a practice of city-making deeply rooted in the collective experience, creativity, and intelligence of growing and increasingly diverse groups of people. This will be crucial in building sustainable urban futures.

The Global Parliament of Mayors is an unprecedented new democratic global governance body by, for, and of cities: a global megaphone for a common urban voice and a global platform for common urban action.

parCitypatory is a blog, but also a consultancy happy to advise you on urban planning and citizen participation issues. I organise workshops with participatory methods, help you with the project management of urban planning programmes and support the communication of your and your community’s idea. To hire me as a consultant, please get in touch with [email protected]! And if you like my writing, hire me as a writer on all things urban via Texts and the City.

WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities works to make urban sustainability a reality. Through global research and on-the-ground experience, our experts work with city and national leaders in Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Turkey, and the United States to spur action and improve life for millions.

Julien Carbonnell's thesis, featuring case studies in Taiwan, Israel, and Estonia

• Artificial Intelligence
• Books
• Citizen Engagement

A scholarly review of Chinese e-government solutions that allow citizens to message leaders, by Kathleen Hartford

• Communicating with the government

Democracy and participatory political group in Guayaquil

• Participatory democracy