Citizen-Driven Innovation

Read this guidebook, which explores smart cities through a lens that promotes citizens as the driving force of urban innovation. It presents different models of smart cities that show how citizen-centric methods can mobilize resources to respond innovatively to challenges in governance. The living lab approach encourages agile development and the rapid prototyping of ideas in a decentralized and user-centric manner. How can mayors and public administrators create partnerships that drive value in their communities through citizen-driven innovation? How can sustainability be integrated into municipal strategies and solutions? How can city leaders join forces to learn and network globally?

Introduction

In 2009, for the first time in history, the earth's population of urban inhabitants overtook its rural population.

Between 2011 and 2050, world population is expected to increase by 2.3 billion, passing from 7.0 billionto 9.3 billion (United Nations, 2011). Population growth is also becoming largely an urban phenomenon with cities projected to gain 2.6 billion inhabitants, passing from 3.6 billion in 2011 to 6.3 billion 2050, concentrated in the developing world. Asia and Africa are expected to make up 80% of this urban growth, with Asian urban residents projected to increase by 1.4 billion. Cities, although vibrant, exciting, and promising, face a series of challenges that require increasingly sophisticated tools and solutions, especially in a global atmosphere of increased scarcity. Indeed, it is becoming difficult for City administrations to provide even the most basic services to a good share of their populations.

Source: Jarmo Eskelinen, Ana Garcia Robles, Ilari Lindy, Jesse Marsh, and Arturo Muente-Kunigami, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/21984
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