Harnessing people power with an Urban app

The design of the Urban 2.0 app mock-up is driven by a Vision for urban places, to make them the best that they can be.

The app design and architecture is shaped by the five main parts of the Urban 2.0 system and the Urban 2.0 principles: 

• Good governance - which means openness and transparency, performance-driven, effective collaboration, accountability and self-correcting mechanisms. 
• Good ecological integration - how we work with, not against, nature.
• Good physical design - why, how and what we design, build and maintain. 
• Good socio-economics - how everyone is meaningfully involved.
• Good knowledge sharing - to implement good practices and to continuously improve.

The app mock-up concept has been built with “views” for different people / groups:

• For citizens - a solution that helps them with services, and to get involved in what's happening in their area. 
• For municipal authorities - a way to engage openly and transparently with people, to manage urban activities efficiently and to drive purposeful change.
• For businesses - to support sustainable activities, to help nurture the circular economy and to support urban resilience.
• For academia - to contribute to urban improvement through research. 
• For Not For Profit groups - to contribute to urban improvement and ensure all parts of society are heard. 
• For multilateral institutions - to engage with everyone to make best use of their resources. 

An app admin section:

The mock-up includes an admin section, which is designed to be managed at a local level, for municipal authorities to manage and support their local needs in the app (and also for monitoring and reporting purposes, including for different segmentation (e.g. geographies, by size, by type, etc.) 

Supporting solutions such as a tablet app:

It is envisaged that the Urban 2.0 app could be made available as a tablet version and a website, for use particularly for city administrators and stakeholders who will be using more detailed screens.  

A “citizens profile” of the Urban 2.0 app mock-up exists to provide help and to inspire people in the world's cities and towns to get involved in all sorts of ways and to "do their bit" to make these places the best they can be. 

It includes the following ideas to help citizens: 

• Provide a useful service for information and links to other apps.
• Provide a way to engage easily, regularly and effectively with municipal authorities in a range of ways, from survey and opinions to attending discussions and voting on matters.
• Showcase examples of citizen and community action that is making a difference to local urban areas around the world.
• Inspire and enable people to get involved in initiatives in the cities and towns where they live and where they visit on their travels.
• Provide incentives for taking part in certain initiatives. 

The idea is that people can be incentivised to improve their local areas in certain ways, for example:

• Receive offers and rewards for taking positive action to improve urban areas (e.g. linked to businesses that serve the city / town).
• Incentive people to be "actively mobile" by linking up with existing apps that can count steps, runs etc. and earning rewards points (similar to some Health insurance apps).
• Perhaps linking with digital currencies that recognise contributions by citizens towards the SDGs and improving urban environments, and rewarding them with tokens.

The Urban 2.0 app is not intended to replace tourist guides, restaurant ratings apps, ride hailing apps or any other already popular type of app service. The idea is for it to link to existing apps that people use (appreciating that different apps are used in different parts of the world) into an "urban wallet", to give people useful advice and links to services, sources of information and incentives to play their part to make their urban place the best it can be.

The Green section of the app mock-up links to the ecology part of the urban system. It allows citizens to engage in matters such as:

1. Getting to Zero - how we can all reduce emissions (and incentives to do so).
2. Being Responsible - how to leverage the circular economy, reduce waste, and be responsible with our consumption of everything.
3. How we Move - how to make a new Transport & Mobility hierarchy work, maximising active mobility.
4. Better Energy - how to leverage energy tips, and see good economic outcomes from it.
5. The Built World - how we can all play our part in making buildings more sustainable.
6. Play the Game - take part in games to improve urban environments, and learn as a result.

The Thrive section of the app mock-up focuses on aspects of the socio-economic part of the urban system, including:

1. Find out about events and activities in the city / town.
2. How to support local businesses (and how to start one).
3. How to help the area be integrated with local biodiversity.

The Be Resilient section of the app mock-up could provide the following:

1. Tips and advice on Wellbeing.
2. Aspects of health monitoring of the city (air pollution, noise pollution etc.)
3. Advice relating to climate change.
4. Advice on disaster hazards and how to be prepared.

The last section of the app mock-up for citizens is How Our City Runs. This could include:

1. Interact with your municipal authority.
2. Find out about municipal authority get-togethers and forums for citizens.
3. See how your taxes are being spent.
4. Have your say, get involved and influence the direction of your city / town.

To support regular citizen engagement (and linked to good governance), app holders could be invited to take part in topical discussions (in person and online), feedback surveys and opinion polls that are organised by municipal authorities. 

The municipal authorities (cities and towns) view of the Urban 2.0 app mock-up is designed to achieve four things: 

1. Demonstrate transparent and open governance.
2. Support effective engagement with everyone.
3. Provide efficiencies in service.
4. Provide advice and support to municipal authorities and supporting teams.

The app mock-up provides a summary of the Urban 2.0 system to support how cities and towns function. It includes ideas for tools to connect and engage with citizens and businesses in a modern and simple way, and ways to manage and monitor urban change and improvements.

It is designed to link into how authority teams work and operate, and hopefully to help them improve how they engage with citizens and businesses, much of which today is done through city and town websites (which are not always known about or are not easily accessible) and paper-based forms.

The municipal authorities view is put forward as an enhancement to how they may already function. Whether the ideas in the app are feasible given municipal structures around the world, and also the size of municipal teams, is not known. Nonetheless, it is hoped this app could benefit authority teams responsible for cities and towns in developed countries, and also in developing countries (many of whom are struggling to handle essential services in fast-growing urban places). If municipal authorities are to embrace an app like this, they will need to be organisationally ready to use it as a way to engage with citizens and businesses in their city / town.

The Menu options for municipal authorities are currently set up as: 

1. Activities that are relevant for what they do. 
2. Engagement with their stakeholders (citizens, businesses, NfPs, CSOs etc.) using modern online forms of communication.
3. Administration & feedback from stakeholders, and efficient ways to respond to them, and to act upon their suggestions.