Christian Rost (Dipl. Geograph) Stadt- und Regionalentwicklung Könneritzstraße 20 04229 Leipzig Tel.: 0341 46336832 Mobil: 01636200066 Mail: christianrost.le@googlemail.com
Christian Rost (source: Goethe-Institut Estland)
Crowdforce Event – 2013-10-07 – Tropicana Rotterdam
Keynote: „Crowd sourcing as a tool for integrated urban development“ – a summary by Christian Rost About the speaker: Christian Rost studied human and physical geography with references to urban and regional development / urban ecology. He works as a moderator in a district of Leipzig and in neighborhood management there as well; he also volunteers for a socio-cultural center in his home city. Mr. Rost is an expert in urban governance and participation processes in urban development. Prior to his actual working on his PhD in the field of urban and regional development he worked as CEO of the „Federal Competence Center for Cultural and Creative Industries“ in Germany.
Protests at Gezi-Park, Istanbul 2013 (source: AFP)
Misguided planning processes go hand in hand with the lack of citizen involvement and participation. Despite legal basis, cities’ governments cannot / or do not want to involve all relevant population groups in appropriate processes. Often they are too expensive or take too much time. Background : Rebellious cities and normative claim And yet by using the right set of instruments, much The need for the inclusion of broad social classes in higher follow-up costs could be avoided while dourban development processes and urban projects ing justice to the citizens’ interests . In addition, this approach would offer the opportunity to generate can be derived in general from two levels. A first dimension of the issue finds its origin in the other, perhaps better approaches to and solutions scientific proclaimed by Henry Lefebvre ´s „Right to for urban development scenarios. the City“ (Levebre 2009). It describes the difference Beyond the practical level as presented in this paper, between the usual recovery mechanisms in the real there also exists a normative claim in the EU context. estate sector, building upon practices of urban deve- This second dimension of the topic originates from lopment and the intrinsic interests of the different the 1980s (Hauff 1987). Based on the United Nations stakeholders in the urban context. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio Where such conflicts of interest lead, is repea- de Janeiro in 1992, an action program called „Agentedly demonstrated by the wide variety of ur- da 21“ was enacted (Heineberg , 2001). For the first ban protest movements. Whether in Seattle in time, the demand for the inclusion of all segments of 1999 or in Istanbul in 2013, the realities of ur- society in the search for solutions was part of the imban planning often miss the wishes and needs of plementation on the local level. (Lötscher & Kühmithe different population groups (Harvey 2013). chel 1998).
vic participation, are also found in EU programs such as ERRE and ESF. The above presented two dimensions of the imperative of including broad population strata in urban development processes and urban projects describe a paradigm shift at long sight or respectively a three-step-process from planning to management to governance. According to Mayntz this development can be summed up as follows. Based on the statist hierarchical shaping of social fields through politics (hiding behind the term „planning“,) in the 1960s and early 1970s Mayntz describes the change in the Greatings from Rio (source: move-your-card.com) 1970s, up to a „management“: „ The type of planning A fundamental change in the understanding of urban that had been practiced until then obviously didn’t development planning can be seen in this context. In work, because the particular object to be shaped terms of a cooperative state, control is understood wasn’t a merely passive item readily letting the as a process of interaction, during which the control- government form him, but rather active and dynaling object and subject are no longer clearly separa- mically processing control impulses“ (Mayntz 1996; ted from each other (Mayntz 2004 : Hamedinger et 1998 Benz 2007). However, the model of „manageal 2008). ment“ got into trouble, certain social phenomena To this effect, urban development planning is de- could not bedetected (Benz 2007 1998 Mayntz 1996). fined as a strategy- oriented planning, „relying on Hence Mayntz continues to assume that a „[ ... ] sothe inclusion and participation of different actors in cial subsystem’s resistance to political interventions administration, politics, economiy and civil society“ [ ... ]“ exists . These and similar insights subsequently (Dangschat 2008). Besided the physical component, led urban planners and researchers to compare prett alsoencompasses the social factor of urban deve- vious models of society controlling to a plurality of lopment. governance mechanisms, which take new into view On the European level, the demands for new parti- political networks, professional communities, civil cipation formats can be found in the „Leipzig Char- society, the market and negotiatingconstellations or ter on Sustainable European City“ (European Union associations (Mayntz 1996; 1998: Benz 2007). 2007), in which the member states made a commitment to advance an integrated urban development The problem of operationalisation. and to support governance structures for their im- The need for greater involvement of civil society actors in urban development processes, at least in the plementation. European context, is understood by most of the participating stakeholders. As shown, costs can be reduced by shared knowledge and better deployment of resources at the development of urban projects, using appropriate methods. Subsequent costs are reduced because all affected groups are involved in the run-up. Protests are reduced because the driving force for urban development processes and individual projects comes from the center of the society. It is the implementation that is more difficult than expected. A democratic process of involving the population usually costs a lot of money and often takes more time than expected. Furthermore, despite the Gruß aus Leipzig (source: geo.de) democratic process in the sense of citizens to be inThus, citizens should be systematically integrated cluded cannot always be activated easily. Damon and into development processes. Attempts to implement Ben Miller Orobona, looking for a proper solution, this process included, among others, the application therefore ask rightly: „How can we reach large numof activating and participatory planning processes. bers of people and allow them to effectively engage Comparable approaches, especially in the field of ci- in meaningful citizen participation without slowing
down the process?“ (see millermillercanby.com) . When introduced to the market, the product was The good thing about their issue is that they simul- sold out within a few days (see theinspirationroom. taneously provide a solution. In their opinion, crowd- com). sourcing can be a key to solve these problems. Crowdsourcing as a key But what is meant by crowdsourcing and where does the concept take effect in the sence of a participatory urban development? Crowdsourcing is defined as „the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually the employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined , generally large group of people (crowsourcees ) in the form of an open call“ ( Howe 2006 ) . Another definition could be the following: „ Crowdsourcing as an interactive form of delivering a service which is organized collaboratively or competitively and which includes a large number of extrinsically or intrinsically motivated actors with different levels of knowledge on the basis of modern information and communication technologies using Web 2.0 „(Martin; Lessmann; Voß 2008).
Crowdsourcing (source: super-hub.eu)
The concept is applied in various fields, for example in open innovation processes of companies. “Open innovation is a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external market accesses, as the firms look to advance their technology” (Chesbrough 2003). One particularly successful example is the ‚Yellow Chocolate‘ campaign in New Zealand. Planned as a promotion for the Yellow Pages, by the participation of nearly 100,000 people a chocolate was created that tastes like the color „Yellow“ The population was requested to share their vision of such a taste of chocolate. As a result, they produced a yellow bar of chocolate with the flavor of pineapple-pudding.
Yellow Chocolate (source: theinspirationroom.com)
Another example of the application of crowdsourcing is crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing, in which money is collected through the crowd, mainly for artistic projects, companies, NGOs and political purposes. . At the same time, donors are involved in different ways: as multipliers for the finished projects , as an inspiration in the development process, as investors or as a pre-seller. A successful crowdfunding project is about more than just the money „ ( EisfeldReschke, J.; Pelzer, C.; Wenzlaff, K. 2012). As one such example, the most successful platform „Kickstarter „ could be mentioned. Also interesting are special niche providers. In Germany a platform called „LeihDeinerStadtGeld“ . Instead of expensive bank loans for the pre-financing of urban construction projects, the platform allows cities to borrow money from their own citizens. In turn, the citizens can decide what happens with the city money (www.leihdeinerstadtgeld.de ).
Leih Deiner Stadt Geld (source: leideinerstadtgeld.de)
Other forms of crowdsourcing are “Co-Creation” and “Micro Working” ( Eisfeld-Reschke, J.; Pelzer, C.; Wenzlaff, K. 2012) . As these first examples show, crowdsourcing allows getting in touch with a large number of customers and interested people (the crowd). At a very high scope, knowledge can be sampled from many people. This gives a valuable range of opinions, avoiding high costs. Thus solutions to problems can be developed collaboratively. Against this background, crowdsourcing solves all the requirements of an integrated urban development. It is a non-hierarchical tool for reaching a consensus. Due to the far reach and open access to all population groups, it has also a grassroot democratic basis. Due to its simple application, it supports joint activities and promotes a more targeted use of existing resources. This, for example, works very well in the field of city marketing as the German crowdsourcing project „Hannover Love“ shows. While the city of Hannover does not yet have its own Facebook page, some residents have come together and show their favorite places in the city on the project’s website (see hannoverliebe.de). Through various links to Vimeo, Facebook & co it is an effective tool for defining a population’s identity.
City-Planing (source: plankooperativ.de)
Areas such as urban planning or marketing are tailored very specifically on a particular target group. In a larger context crowdsourcing can also be used as a tool for direct democracy. On the platform edemocracy.org citizens can discuss and voteupon municipal projects and urban planning projects . „edemocracy.org „ was launched in 1994 in Minnesota, and is now available in the U.S., UK and New Zealand in over 50 municipalities (See e-democracy.org ). How means are being applied purposefully in order to optimally benefit from the knowledge of the mass in urban projects shows „Apps for Democracy „ from the city of Washington. Originally developed as a competition for the best technical application to access the urban database, apps will now be promoted that offer solutions for more direct democracy. The best developer team is awarded with a cash prize of $ 10,000 and a support of up to $ 14,000 over a period of 9 months (see appsfordemocracy.org).
DYI-City-Marketing (source: hannoverliebe.de)
Another example is „Like Offenbach“. With that project the city supports the private makers of that Facebook page with money. The contents are created and maintained by students of the local university, without the city government intervening (see facebook.de /likeoffenbach). In the field of classical planning techniques crowdsourcing is also applied. The company “PlanKooperativ” from Heidelberg provides a web tool, which allows cities and villages to plan urban spaces through the participation of the mass (see plankooperativ.de)
App´s for Washington DC (source: appsfordemocracy.org)
The listed examples show that crowdsourcing can be an effective tool in the field of urban development. But what are the critical success factors? For a successful application of crowdsourcing as a tool of integrated urban development, the same conditions as in other application areas are needed. For instance, the content and the benefits of a participation should be evident. Consequently, it is better to
limit oneself to a core topic and not wanting to solve all problems at once. Also theissue should be of high common interest. It is also important that everyone involved can really contribute and that this involvement isn’t just feigned. This can be achieved by giving feedback toand showing every contributor which results are implemented at the end. Only then a long term trust between the different actors can be established. A good example of the successful implementation of such an instrument is „Maerker Brandenburg�. Here the knowledge of the crowd is used for identifying road damage, illegal landfills and other problems. The targeted users have a vested interest in the resolution of these nuisances and can personally take part in that process. The objective of the offer is clearly formulated and the benefits are apparent. When a problem is solved, it can be seen in real terms and also on the website via a traffic light. Thus everyone can follow-up on their concern. If these things are being paid attention, a crowdsourcing offer can be a success (see mearker.brandenburg.de).
Maerker Brandenburg (source: maerker.brandenburg.de)
Sources: Chesbrough, H. W. (2003). Open Innovation: The new imperative for creating and profiting from technology. Boston Coase R. (197): The Nature of the Firm. In: Williamson, O. E. & Winter, S. G. [Hrsg] (1991): The Nature of the Firm. Origins, Evolution, and Development. New York u. a. S. 18–33. Zitiert nach: Benz, A. [Hrsg] (2007): Handbuch Governance. Theoretische Grundlagen und empirische Anwendungsfelder. Wiesbaden. Eisfeld-Reschke, J.; Pelzer, C. und Wenzlaff, K. (2012): Crowdsourcing Report 2012 - Neue Digitale Arbeitswelten, Berlin Europische Union (2007): Leipzig Charta zur nachhaltigen europäischen Stadt. Leipzig. Harvey, D. (2013): Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London, New York Hauff, V. (Hrsg.)(1987): Unsere gemeinsame Zukunft – Der Brundtland-Bericht der Weltkommission für Umwelt und Energie, Greven Howe J. (2006): The Rise of Crowdsourcing. Wired Magazine Lefebvre H. (2009): Le droit à la ville. Paris Lötscher, L., & Kühmichel, K. (1998). Lokale Agenda 21. partizipative planung nachhaltiger Stadtentwicklung?. In: Geographica Helvetica. Jg. 53. H. 4. S. 135–138. Martin, N.; Lessmann, S. und Voß, S. (2008): Crowdsourcing: Systematisierung praktischer Ausprägungen und verwandter Konzepte. Hamburg. Mayntz, R. (1996): Politische Steuerung. Aufstieg, Niedergang und Transformation einer Theorie. In: Beyme, K. von & Offe, C. [Hrsg]: Politische Theorien in der Ära der Transformation. Oppladen. S. 148-168. Zitiert nach: Benz, A. [Hrsg] (2007): Handbuch Governance. Theoretische Grundlagen und empirische Anwendungsfelder. Wiesbaden. Mayntz, R. (1998): New Challanges to Governance Theory. Jean Monet Chair Paper 50. Robert Schumann Centre of the European University. Florenz. Zitiert nach: Benz, A. [Hrsg] (2007): Handbuch Governance. Theoretische Grundlagen und empirische Anwendungsfelder. Wiesbaden. Mayntz, R. (2004): Governance Theory als fortentwickelte Steuerungstheorie?. Max Planck Institut für Gesellschaftsordnung. Working Paper No. 04/1. Zitiert nach: Hamedinger, A., Frey, O., Dangschat, J. S. & Breitfuss, A. [Hrsg] (2008): Strategieorientierte Planung im kooperativen Staat. Wiesbaden.
Web-Sources: http://www.millermillercanby.com/blog/ www.theinspirationroom.com www.leihdeinerstadtgeld.de www.hannoverliebe.de www.facebook.de/likeoffenbach www.plankooperativ.de www.e-democracy.org www.appsfordemocracy.org www.maerker.brandenburg.de