Learning from community indicators movements: Towards a citizen-powered urban data revolution

Abstract

This paper explores current debates, data products and key implications of what has been called the urban data revolution, which has emerged to international prominence in recent years. We engage with critical appraisals of the new urban data revolution, and discuss what they can learn from both the successes and the failures of the earlier wave of data enthusiasm, the community indicators movement. Second, we analyse the different challenges, dangers and implications of the urban data revolution that both complicate and can sustain a citizen-centred vision of good city governance. We further consider the potential for deliberation and participation in the use of data to define and measure urban progress and success. In the face of a mounting volume and velocity of urban data, these lessons nonetheless pose democratic challenges to the urban data revolution today.