Citizen Empowered Mapping


Book Description

This book promotes the exploitation of novel and emerging approaches for mapping environmental and urban informatics empowered by citizens. Chapters are grouped in three sections representing the main subjects. The first section describes data acquisition and modeling. The second section focuses on the quality and reliability of data. The final section presents different methods of environmental monitoring and perception. The book includes diverse case studies from Mexico, the United States and Czech Republic. Topics covered in Citizen Empowered Mapping are of interest for research scholars, practitioners, postgraduates, and professionals from a variety of disciplines including geography, environmental science, geographic information science, social science, and computer science.




Empowering Public Wisdom


Book Description

"Beyond elections, public participation, and citizen input, democracy must produce wise public policy or we're in real trouble. In Empowering Public Wisdom, lifelong activist Tom Atlee proposes innovative and practical ideas for collecting and distilling the wisdom of ordinary people in order to infuse the political process with common sense and provide people with ownership of the process. Empowering Public Wisdom recognizes currently popular forms of progressive democracy advocates, such as citizen participation and voter education, but suggests that what is really needed is a re-thinking of the very concept of democracy; Atlee advocates the use of ""public wisdom,"" a collective intelligence that can be drawn upon to guide public policy and action. Reaching beyond partisan politics, Atlee explores how a diversity of views can be engaged around public issues in ways that generate a coherent, shared ""voice of the people"" that takes most or all of the population's perspectives and needs into account. Atlee's core approach is through ""citizen deliberative councils,"" in which a small group of people randomly selected creates a ""mini-public"" or a microcosm of the







Citizen Empowerment and Innovation in the Data-Rich City


Book Description

This book analyzes the ongoing transformation in the “smart city” paradigm and explores the possibilities that technological innovations offer for the effective involvement of ordinary citizens in collective knowledge production and decision-making processes within the context of urban planning and management. To so, it pursues an interdisciplinary approach, with contributions from a range of experts including city managers, public policy makers, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) specialists, and researchers. The first two parts of the book focus on the generation and use of data by citizens, with or without institutional support, and the professional management of data in city governance, highlighting the social connectivity and livability aspects essential to vibrant and healthy urban environments. In turn, the third part presents inspiring case studies that illustrate how data-driven solutions can empower people and improve urban environments, including enhanced sustainability. The book will appeal to all those who are interested in the required transformation in the planning, management, and operations of data-rich cities and the ways in which such cities can employ the latest technologies to use data efficiently, promoting data access, data sharing, and interoperability.







Smart Cities and Smart Communities


Book Description

“Smart City” programs and strategies have become one of the most dominant urban agendas for local governments worldwide in the past two decades. The rapid urbanization rate and unprecedented growth of megacities in the 21st century triggered drastic changes in traditional ways of urban policy and planning, leading to an influx of digital technology applications for fast and efficient urban management. With the rising popularity in making our cities “smart”, several domains of urban management, urban infrastructure, and urban quality-of-life have seen increasing dependence on advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs) that optimize and control the day-to-day functioning of urban systems. Smart Cities, essentially, act as digital networks that obtain large-scale real-time data on urban systems, process them, and make decisions on how to manage them efficiently. The book presents 26 chapters, which are organized around five topics: (1) Conceptual framework for smart cities and communities; (2) Technical concepts and models for smart city and communities; (3) Civic engagement and citizen participation; (4) Case studies from the Global North; and (5) Case studies from the Global South.




Cartography - Maps Connecting the World


Book Description

This book is an important volume in the series on the state-of-art research in Cartography and GI Science. It is a collection of selected peer-reviewed papers organized into contemporary topics of research, presented at the 27th International Cartographic Conference (ICC) in Rio de Janeiro. This is the 3rd edition of selected ICA conference papers published by Springer Lectures in Geoinformation and Cartography. The conference topic is “maps connecting the world,” and Brazilian cartographers and geo-information scientists are honored to welcome their peers from all over the world to the event, which will present some of the most important recent advances in cartography research and GI science. The most relevant papers will be selected for the Springer book and these will be organized into five sections according to topic area to provide a valuable cartography and GI science reference work




Multisensory Landscapes


Book Description

This book provides a broad view on multisensory landscapes from multiple perspectives. It includes theoretical perspectives as well as case studies. Different theoretical perspectives on landscape emerging from research in the last decades also require a differentiated approach to landscape phenomena, going beyond the visual. For example, a social constructivist approach to the social world foregrounds the processes of negotiating social ‚realities‘. This is not limited to visual aspects, and is not based on a clear physical measurability with an accompanying (purely quantitative) recording. A phenomenological approach, for example, places the synesthetic experience of landscape at the core of interest. This approach to the topic of multisensory via ‚landscape‘ is obvious for several reasons. Firstly, landscape is created (from a constructivist perspective) through the synthesis of sensory impressions on the basis of social patterns of interpretation and evaluation. Secondly, communication about ‚landscape‘ is also accessible to people who do not have any ‚expertlike special knowledge‘ in this regard. Thirdly, landscape as a changing concept is not only a concept of landscape but also of landscape itself. Fourthly, landscape as a changeable concept is particularly suitable for conceptually framing the highly fleeting non-visual stimuli.




Citizen Empowerment through Digital Transformation in Government


Book Description

Technological innovations across the globe are bringing profound change to our society. Governments around the world are experiencing and embracing this technology-led shift. New platforms, emerging technologies, customizable products, and changing citizen demand and outlook towards government services are reshaping the whole journey. When it comes to the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in any sector, the Government of India has emerged as an early adopter of these technologies and has also focused on last-mile delivery of citizen-centric services. Citizen Empowerment through Digital Transformation in Government takes us through the four-decade long transformational journey of various key sectors in India where ICT has played a major role in reimagining government services to citizens across the country. It touches upon the emergence of the National Informatics Centre as a premier technology institution of the Government of India and its collaborative efforts with the Central, State Governments, as well as the District level administration, to deliver best-in-class solutions. Inspiring and informative, the book is filled with real-life transformation stories that have helped to lead the people and the Government of India to realize their vision of a digitally empowered nation.




Urban Regeneration and Community Empowerment Through ICTs


Book Description

This book deals with the issue of Digital Participatory Platforms (DPPs) for urban governance. It explains the role and potential that ICTs play in the decision-making processes of the Public Administration and citizens' participation. The book also illustrates the main technologies that encourage innovation and social inclusion, with particular focus on use of DPPs in urban regeneration programs and projects. It presents international best practices from local to European level and it describes the process of creation, development and testing of a DPP project with reference to the Italian case. The book is divided into three parts: the first one gives a framework of neighborhood urban and civic engagement through ICTs, studying in depth the role of ICTs in support of Public Administration’s processes and citizens participation; the second part investigates the topic of Digital Participatory Platforms (DPPs) with the description of their potentialities, the presentation of some international best practices and a specific focus on the Italian context; the third part draws the conclusions of this path by asking which are the main challenges in the adoption of Digital Participatory Platforms, in order to increase citizen participation and collaboration via technology.