This publication is the outcome of a research project conducted within the framework of IDDRI's Club Ville. It deals with urban crowdsourcing digital tools, which are the subject of many experiments, led by public authorities, private actors and citizen groups, and which use digital texhnologies to collect and organize new data on cities and urban development.
While these tools give citizens a new role as contributors of data, opinions and ideas for cities construction and management, their potential in terms of sustainable developement is not a given outcome.
KEY MESSAGES
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Digital urban crowdsourcing tools offer new opportunities for citizens to produce solutions for urban management, design and planning, while contributing to the invention of a new space for citizen participation, complementing its traditional forms (voting, associative commitment, face-to-face participatory schemes, etc.).
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To fully realize their potential and to be beneficial for the construction and ownership of a shared sustainable urban development project, these tools must be integrated into a truly collaborative strategy, involving stakeholders beyond the simple digitalization of existing practices.
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By supporting the mobilization of communities of concerned users, as well as citizen engagement in urban development, crowdsourcing can accompany a transformation in public action, provided it is inscribed in a strategy favouring the openness and transparency of urban data and decision-making processes.
