Case Studies from Around the World

• Books
• Design

The Privacy Principles for Mobility Data are a set of values and priorities intended to guide the mobility ecosystem in the responsible use of data and the protection of individual privacy.

• mobility

• Civic data
• Ethical tech and responsible tech

ODI & ARUP report and call to action

• Climate action
• cities
• Sustainable cities and communities

• Civic data
• Reports
• Urban planning

mySidewalk gives you the tools and insights you need to build a better world.

• Civic data
• Urban planning

NYC's open participation platform (using CitizenLab) to get public feedback on government use of tech

• Engagement tech

A public engagement project around air quality

• air quality

• Engagement tech

Making Cities for People

• Govtech vendors

The tool provides Sea Level Rise Maps for New York City, integrating the best available FEMA flood hazard data for each location with information on future sea level rise from two different peer-reviewed sources.

• Climate action

• Civic maps
• Urban planning

Citymart transforms the way cities solve procurement problems. Citymart is a platform for city government employees to deliver better services, connecting them to urban solutions, projects and peers across departments and around the world.

• The Tech
• Civic data
• Procurement

Sidewalk Labs is reimagining cities to improve quality of life.

• cities
• mobility

• Civic data
• Civic teams at tech companies

This searchable database indexes visual and geospatial solutions to critical urban problems.

• The Tech
• Civic tech catalogs

The World Smart City Awards seek to recognize pioneering projects, ideas and strategies that promote sustainable urban development around the globe.

• cities

• The People
• Get funding
• Smart Cities and sensors

APPCityLife is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) that empowers cities to rapidly deploy affordable mobile apps and engage citizens through CityLife Chatbot, our Artificial Intelligence chatbot built specifically for cities.

• apps
• cities

• The Tech
• Govtech
• Graveyard

ShotSpotter is the leader in gunshot detection solutions that helps law enforcement officials and security personnel identify, locate and deter gun violence. Our public safety solution, ShotSpotter Flex, is deployed in urban, high-crime areas to help identify, locate and deter gun violence by accurately detecting and locating gunshots and sending real-time alerts to law enforcement.

• The Tech
• Emerging tech
• Smart Cities and sensors

Smart City Expo World Congress is the world's biggest and most influential event on urban innovation.

• cities
• commercial

• Emerging tech
• Conferences
• Smart Cities and sensors

Caminos de la Villa es una plataforma de acción ciudadana que permite acceder de manera sencilla a la información vinculada con los procesos de urbanización en las villas de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires y ver de qué manera se están llevando adelante. ¡Sumate!

• project tracking

• Engagement tech
• Communicating with the government
• Data visualization

The Initiative on Cities engages with urban leaders, academics, and policy makers from around the world to help plan for the development of essential services and sustainable infrastructure necessary for cities to flourish.

• The People
• Learn about civic tech
• Research and policy centers

Placemeter is an open urban intelligence platform. Create your account to automatically quantify pedestrian and vehicular movement for a selected area: streets, parks, stores, and much more.

• The Tech
• Emerging tech
• Smart Cities and sensors

Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future

• books
• cities

• The Tech
• Emerging tech
• Smart Cities and sensors

As the gears of federal government have ground to a halt, a new energy has been rocking the foundations of our urban centers. From Atlanta to Seattle and points in between, cities have begun seizing the initiative, transforming themselves into laboratories for progressive innovation. Income inequality, affordable housing, climate change, sustainable development, public health, participatory government—cities are tackling them all, bringing new urgency to some of the most vital questions of the day. Welcome to the age of big city progressivism! Cities Rising is The Nation’s contribution to the conversation.

• The People
• Learn about civic tech
• News and blogs

Urban Intelligence Lab

• The Tech
• Emerging tech
• Smart Cities and sensors

Digital twin - Virtual Singapore is a 3D digital replica of Singapore built on topographical as well as real-time, dynamic data.

• cities

• The Tech
• Civic data
• Data visualization

MIT City Science has developed an international network of cooperative City Science Labs

• cities

• The People
• Meet the others
• Learn about civic tech

The Foundation promotes Civic Imagination ie listening, collaboration, participation and co-production in relation to projects and policies of the city, its neighborhoods and the entire metropolitan area, with a specific attention to the care and regeneration of urban common goods

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy

Did you know that you can use Minecraft for more than a simple fun? Learn about great Block by Block initiative for community participation in urban design.

• workshops
• Minecraft

• Media
• Participatory democracy
• Digital participation platforms

Intervention SimulationAugmented Reality Decision Support Systems topredict and quantify the impact of disruptive interventions

• The Tech
• Emerging tech
• Urban planning

• Adjacent Fields
• Foundational layers
• Diversity & Inclusion

Monitoreo ciudadano de datos sobre ciclismo urbano en Cochabamba

• cycling
• mobility

• Civic data
• Communicating with the government
• Issue reporting

Portal de datos abiertos sobre problemáticas urbanas

• cities

• Civic data
• Open data publishing portals

The Digital Connector is an open source piece of software, which allows data specialists to efficiently connect data sets into a common format.

• The Tech
• Civic data
• Data visualization

Urban imagination and social innovation through design & science

• The People
• Learn about civic tech
• Courses

We help governments, organizations and companies understand and navigate the increasingly complex urban landscape, and work together to create a sustainable and executable vision for the future, fast.

• Social impact design firms

Built as a microcosm of Berlin, the game gives kids a chance to try out different roles in city life – and provides a testbed for ideas on real urban challenges

• The Tech
• Media
• Games and gamification

The causes and effects of air pollution comprise a complicated chemical recipe that is all too easily reduced to superficial observation (the color of the sky) or an abstract statistical reading from static instruments. In reality, the total experience of a city’s air quality is a combination of highly localized as well as more regional effects that shift in intensity as one moves through an urban landscape.

• air quality

• The Tech
• Emerging tech
• Smart Cities and sensors

WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities' online resource for the latest news and analysis on urban sustainability and development, from a global perspective.

• The People
• Learn about civic tech
• News and blogs

2018 Book by Susan Crawford

• books

• Books
• Connectivity

APPLYING THE BLOOMBERG PHILANTHROPIES APPROACH TO DRIVE INNOVATION IN CITIES

• The Tech
• The People
• Adjacent Fields

Unlocking People's Expertise to Solve Urban Challenges

• methodology
• reports

• Parliamentary and Legislative Tech
• Playbooks and design principles
• Building inside government

Metagenomics & Metadesign of Subways & Urban Biomes

• cities
• DNA
• mass transit

• Adjacent Fields
• Tech for public challenges

A new cloud-based platform addresses urban flooding problems through green infrastructure performance monitoring.

• Clean water and sanitation

• The Tech
• Emerging tech
• Smart Cities and sensors

Create greener communities and explore our urban forests, together.

• Life on land

• The Tech
• Civic data
• Crowdsourcing

• Civic data
• Roundtables

Konveio turns regular PDFs into social documents for draft reviews, interactive reports, digital workshops or immersive guides and training materials.

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy

The ride-hailing company is working with DC to share data—and the much coveted curb.

• Uber

• Data science for social good
• Urban planning

AppMyCity! is a contest for the world’s best urban app

• cities

• The People
• Awards and prizes
• Fieldwide resources

An interactive platform to improve decision-making related to the revitalization of the Champs Élysées

• urban planning

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy

área experimental y creativa del gobierno de la Ciudad de México de 2013 al 2018.

• The People
• Govtech
• Build something

Placelet is a system for collecting, analyzing and visualizing data on the human experience of urban places.

• cities
• urban planning

• The Tech
• Emerging tech
• Graveyard

The Vanguard conference is an experiential urban leadership gathering of rising urban leaders working to improve cities across sectors, including urban planning, community development, entrepreneurship, government, transportation, sustainability, design, art and media. By selection only.

• cities

• The People
• Meet the others
• Conferences

More than half of the world now lives in urban areas. In the U.S., urban dwellers are the vast majority of the population. What does it mean to live in a city today? What are the challenges for cities going forward? NPR explores urban life in the 21st century.

• The People
• Learn about civic tech
• News and blogs