Local co-creation

One-way traffic

One of the municipality’s key tasks is to actively inform its citizens. This often entails the municipality releasing a flood of information to its citizens. The most frequently used tool to achieve this is still the digital newsletter. But reaching citizens remains a major challenge. How many people actually subscribe to municipal newsletters? And how many people loyally read their municipal RSS feed? Cleary, municipalities have to figure out other ways of involving citizens in their policy-making process.

Personal touch

Personal weblogs of councillors are being used more frequently by councils to engage in dialogue with their citizens. Municipal councils use a blog to communicate in an active way about relevant issues in the community. But weblogs can also serve as an excellent tool for eliciting responses from citizens. In practice, however, actively involving citizens turns out to be a difficult task, which is evident from the limited number of responses on the various Dutch municipal blogs.

At an international level, any self-respecting mayor will at the very least have a personal blog on the municipal website. The eccentric Boris Johnson even has his own url. The amount of topical information available generates a great deal of active readers, which is again evident from the number of responses. Another site that is perhaps even more intriguing is boriswatch.com, a site for really involved citizens that even sells Boris shirts and string thongs!

 
Boris Johnson has his own website

Interactive policy-making

Less frequently encountered on municipal websites are so-called polls, which are used to gauge citizens’ opinions on specific issues. Vancouver, which has topped the ‘most liveable city’ list for years, has a short survey covering a variety of issues on their website. Citizens are asked to voice their opinions about policies regarding pedestrians, taxi-service satisfaction and even how to best celebrate the 2010 Winter Games.

Vancouver offers citizens the opportunity to voice their (dis)satisfaction with ‘Have your say’

So-called interactive policy-making takes citizen participation yet a step further. This could entail the renovation of a market square, for example. People living in the neighbourhood, as well as other interested parties, are invited by means of an interactive process to voice their desires and ideas or even indicate their preferences. Citizens are therefore not responding to ready-made plans but making their own contribution to the development of these plans.

This type of co-creation, which has already been successfully implemented in the commercial sector (Wikipedia and, more recently, Nokia Labs and Dell’s IdeaStorm), seem to be taking an increasingly firm hold in the public sector.
Citizens will often only actively voice their opinion if their immediate surroundings are being affected. A new design for Koemarkt in Purmerend, for example, generated a flood of votes that would make any candidate for public office green with envy.

Although still in its infancy, Ambtenaar 2.0 is evidence that the government is gradually embracing the Web 2.0 concept. An increasing number of local initiatives are springing up: wijbouweneenwijk.nl (previously dealt with on Frankwatching), which gives citizens an opportunity to contribute to the design and layout of a new residential neighbourhood in the village of Opeinde, is a good initiative for encouraging support and involvement among inhabitants.
Similar projects have already been established in the UK under the name mysociety.org. A nice example is fixmystreet.com, where citizens can report, view or discuss local problems. The site consistently mentions the number of reports per street, as well as the number of problems that have been solved.

 
FixMyStreet keeps an accurate tally of how things stand in your street

A glimpse into the future

How will citizens and local authorities interact in the future? Will municipal elections be held online in 2010 as a testbed for national elections or future referendums? Or are we getting ahead of ourselves here?
Local affairs, such as building neighbourhoods or exposing street and neighbourhood problems, seem to be subjects that serve as a perfect starting point for interactive policy-making. Matters that involve several groups and transcend single neighbourhoods are becoming increasingly complex, which is going to make it more difficult for interactive tools to handle. The best thing is to start modestly, and if successful then gradually move on to more complex issues!

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