Map-based Citizens' Engagement Tool

Submitted by: Brett Robertson

Describe your idea. How does it work and who does it help?

My proposal is to use public data as a starting point to create a system of map-based democracy and community engagement that draws heavily on Web 2.0 principles, and copies a great deal of the current best practice. For want of a better name, I'm going to call it M-CET, the Map-based Citizens' Engagement Tool.

Static data
My description of M-CET starts with what I call the static data. Basically what I envisage is a mashup of a whole range of publicly-available geographic data along the lines of LondonProfiler.org. This is the "what" and "where" of a neighbourhood. Because most people don't have the time or inclination to spend hours examining detailed statistics, and because the default scale is at the neighbourhood level rather than at the city level, the focus should primarily be on point-based data (NHS providers, schools, police stations, recycling centres, bus stops, crime locations, and planning applications are all good examples). Secondarily the mashup should include summary statistics, such as the ONS Neighbourhood Summary or a geodemographic classification such as ACORN.

It is of course feasible to include more data than this in the mashup, such as a whole range of census data, but a balance must be achieved between having enough information and avoiding having so much that it is overwhelming. The crucial point is that the data is a starting point for community discussion, rather than a tool for experts to do statistical correlation. To assist this objective, it goes without saying that the datasets should be appropriately organised and categorised, and the interface for turning on/off datasets should be simple and intuitive.

Dynamic interaction
Static data has little value in and of itself - it becomes truly useful when it promotes and prompts interaction, collaboration and ultimately, action. In one-directional broadcast mode, it might be useful to experts and analysts, but to ordinary citizens it is little more than an interesting curiosity. However, as a starting point for many-to-many citizen engagement and collaboration, it has the potential to be enormously powerful.

The Web 2.0 aspect of my proposal starts with users registering their home post code, email address and "area of interest" (AoI). The AoI can be defined as simply as a radius from their home location, or in a more flexible way, which I will describe later. They can then post various messages attached to point or area locations, very similarly to the "user generated content" in Google maps. Posts can have tags (labels), links, attachments such as photos, be voted and commented on by other residents, or flagged for inappropriate content. Organisations can also register (eg local councils, government departments, charities, church groups, sport groups, schools, clubs, community groups, local shops etc), but should perhaps be treated slightly differently, as I will explain later.

So far, this is all standard Web 2.0. The interesting part, I hope, is in the types (or "categories") of content citizens are encouraged to contribute, and in the way their posts are defined geographically. But first to the categories that I suggest using:

Category 1: Proposals
For me, this is the most interesting category, making M-CET into something like a permanent town meeting. Proposals are citizen initiatives on almost any topic that are locally-based and geographically defined either as a point or an area. Here are some examples:

• "We need a pedestrian crossing on my local street, it's too dangerous for school children"
• "My neighbourhood is rated very badly for health by the ONS, but the nearest NHS doctor is ages away -- we need better access to health services"
• "We should start a support group for disability carers in Bermondsey"
• "I don't feel safe on this street corner - the police should patrol this area more regularly"
• "We need more bus services in my local area"
• "This is such a windy town -- why don't we organise an information session on small scale wind turbines?"
• "Our local park is a mess - who wants to help me clean it up?"

Not all proposals require a response by a government body, but for the ones that do (which should be tagged as such), it is crucial that they be communicated with the right decision makers. Ideally, the appropriate local civil servants should regularly use the site and respond to proposals with actions or explanations. In practice, however, this task may fall in the first instance to the office of the local elected councillor or MP. For them, it is an ideal way of keeping their fingers on the pulse of their constituents, and showing that they are dealing promptly with local issues by responding - very visibly - to popular proposals within their electorate. This is raw democracy in action.

As I mentioned earlier, proposals could be created in M-CET either as a single point, or - probably more often - as an area. This is one of the more challenging technical aspects of M-CET to implement, but I also think that it is very important. If a proposal is relevant to a large area - be it a street, a park, a neighbourhood, a borough, a town or a whole city - it should be made visible to any interested citizens in that area. To define this area, a set of tools should be available to draw the affected area onto a (scaleable) map. This might be done by drawing a polygon (like in the Google Maps demo here), using circles or rectangles of different sizes, or perhaps just selecting postcodes (similar to the ONS "create a custom table, chart or map" interface). I know this would be challenging, but it allows for some exciting possibilities.

Category 2: Commercial
This category is for anything of a commercial nature that local shops or citizens want to announce. For example:

• Private sales of second-hand goods (furniture, bicycles, whitegoods, etc)
• Local shops announcing they are having a sale, or simply flagging their location and merchandise
• People offering local services (cleaning, teaching French or piano, etc)
• Property sales or tenancy

This is basically a combination of sites like Gumtree, eBay, PropertyFinder, yell, Google Maps, etc. The difference is that it's local and it's all accessible through the one site. Citizens will only see commercial posts within their AoI, and only if they choose to display, search or be notified by email of them. The main difference between commercial posts and other categories is that they can only be posted as a single point, at the location of the shop (or point of sale for individuals). This must be an information tool rather than an advertising tool. As with all other posts, commercial posts can be rated and commented on -- a useful and visible way of providing feedback about a business.

Category 3: Opinion, social commentary & humour
The idea behind this category (which needs a more succinct name) is to have something a bit lighter to maintain citizens' interest in M-CET. It is basically a citizens' blog, with content not unlike opinion columns or letters to the editor in newspapers. Like everything else in M-CET, it is geographically based (pinned to a location or area), tagged to a subject(s), and can be voted or commented on, or flagged as inappropriate. Insightful, fun, funny, artistic or just plain popular posts are rewarded with popular support and become more visible.

Defining the Area of Interest
The AoI can be defined in the same way as described above for proposals, as a flexibly defined area. It is important to allow this level flexibility. If a person is only interested in their immediate area, they can draw a small circle and will only be informed of new posts that fall within or overlap their immediate vicinity. If they want to engage more directly with their local area, they can draw a bigger circle, maybe several km across. Many citizens will have even wider and more diverse AoIs - encompassing their local park, the school their children attend, their workplace, other properties they own, the homes of their family members, or perhaps the route they walk to work.

When the person logs on, they will see the posts that fall inside or overlap their AoI on the map, and also in a list (ordered by date or popularity). They might also choose to be notified by email of new posts in certain categories, or those containing tags or search strings they are interested in. The emails can be sent immediately or in daily or weekly digests - a function that most discussion boards and web forums have these days. This is a useful way of getting people to keep returning to the site.

Points system
One final characteristic of M-CET which might be considered is a points system. Points can be awarded for posting and commenting, and when a post receives support from other citizens. Similarly, points should be deducted for inappropriate posts or comments that have to be removed. This provides recognition for regular contributors who make proposals or commentary that receive a lot of support. Perhaps the maximum size of the geographical area attached to a post should be limited by the number of points a citizens has accumulated. This ensures that citizens become more experienced in making small but valuable contributions before they make suggestions or social commentary that covers a whole city.

As a further incentive and encouragement tool, successful proposals could be nominated weekly as "success stories", and highlighted to all users of the system (like the Wikipedia "Featured Articles"), and perhaps to the media.

Organisations
Care will have to be taken about how to balance the contributions of individuals with those of organisations. M-CET is mostly intended for individuals, but community groups and government organisations should also have a presence. They should be able to influence and be influenced by proposals and discussions, not dominate them. Registered organisations might be able to post in another category called "announcements", like mini-press releases. Again, these posts are relevant to a particular geography, and can be commented or voted on.

In summary, this is a tool for open, map-based democracy and community engagement; informed by static public data but driven mostly by citizen content. Obviously this idea is not wholly original - I have stolen many ideas from many places - but such is the nature of open innovation. Overall it is ambitious, technically challenging and very preliminary, but offers some exciting possibilities. I hope you agree - comments welcome.

What information or services do you need?

Data requirements:
-Any publicly available point data
-ONS Summary Neighbourhood statistics
-Possibly geodemographic data

Interface requirements:
-Google Maps interface
-Posting system based on Web 2.0 best practice
-Ability to define a geographic area to outline a citizen's area of interest, and the area to attach to a post

Participation requirements:
-Regular use by at least 5% of population
-Participation by community organisations & government departments
-Actioning of proposals by local councillors/MPs
-A small technical team for moderation/maintenance

Comments

[Noel on 25 July 2008 at 03:10 PM]

Great stuff, love how you can define your "area of interest". I worked on a participative democracy project in France and we had all of this...in different places (not very joined up). Anyway, these guys learnt the lessons and they've produced something like you're talking about. Email me at noel.hatch1@gmail.com and I'll send you the pdf (unfortunately the site closed down because the candidate didn't win the elections!)

[Brett Robertson on 10 July 2008 at 10:20 AM]

As pointed out to me this morning, the work of Steven Clift is also very relevant:

"Because representative democracy is based on geography, content created by citizens must be identified by place instead of simply organized by issue. Content, from a news story to an online comment to a picture or video, needs to automatically be assigned (or “tagged”) with a geographic place. In addition, content bounded by a state or region or identified as global will be essential."

See Tim Watt's summary here - http://tokblog.org/?p=620
And the original article here - http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/node/52

[Brett Robertson on 09 July 2008 at 07:10 PM]

For anyone interested in a more intellectual take on this, a good place to start is with Yochai Benkler, author of The Wealth of Networks. This quote from his essay at http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/node/37:

"New forms of engaged collaboration. The next phase in the integration of large-scale cooperation into democracy will come when we begin to use platforms for collecting, filtering, and refining proposals for action and active contributions. It is simplest to imagine this occurring at the level of local government. People living their day-to-day lives encounter a multitude of obstacles and overcome them using diverse solutions. Some problems cannot be solved systematically. Some can, but require attention and effort unavailable to local governments. Developing systems that allow people to report problems, offer solutions, vet them, compare solutions across municipalities, and propose action could overcome the limited resources at the local level. On the free-software model, everyone is a beta tester of their own physical environment, and all bugs can be fixed in that environment if enough people look at the problem. Taking this approach to the national level, there is no reason that federal agencies cannot implement similar systems."

[Brett Robertson on 09 July 2008 at 05:41 PM]

Would love to hear your thoughts Alice - this is just a rough initial idea, there's plenty of room to improve or build on it.

brettfrobertson [at] gmail [dot] com

[Alice Casey on 09 July 2008 at 03:43 PM]

Sounds like a great idea - something I'd been pondering on in a vague kind of way for a while now. Would be interested to discuss further... www.involve.org.uk/alice