How Smartphones are Building Better Cities

In the past 2-3 years technological advancement in smartphones has grown by leaps and bounds. Imagine a city led by tech savvy citizens who are given an opportunity to report issues and request services through smartphones to take an active role in the proactive management and improvement of city assets and infrastructure. It not only encourages community involvement, but helps create a transparency between government and citizens.

When driving around the city, people will often notice a broken asset such as a downed sign, a broken tree, or a dead animal on the street.  Before the age of mobile technology, these out-and-about citizens had to be really motivated to report encountered issues. And many times, they left these issues unreported, figuring that the city would surely encounter the problems on its own.  But today, they can quickly record the issue and its location and immediately submit it to their city — along with pictures, no less — all via the smartphones they carry with them every day.

In turn cities must be prepared to manage and solve these reported issues using sophisticated citizen request management tools. The city will know of numerous issues and it will allow them to prioritize and send crew members to solve these problems. Citizens will be able to track the status and history of their issues, and may be notified through emails or text messages upon fixing, thus improving the city simply through the eyes of citizens. 

To help connect the citizens to the government, workforce and management, Cartegraph has come up with the YourGOV mobile and web citizen request management solution.

Citizens download the free YourGOV app for both iPhone and Android (a Windows Phone 7 app is forthcoming) from respective app stores. Participating organizations use the Cartegraph management software and a dedicated YourGOV website to administer and manage issues. Citizens simply log into the city's YourGOV website to submit new issues, or check the status of their existing issue/request.

And it doesn't stop there. In the future, citizens will receive emails or text messages when their issues get scheduled and resolved. People will even be able to cast "votes" within YourGOV to give a citizen-level perspective on the prioritization of reported issues.

In the end, it's more than an application.  It's giving citizens a direct hand in improving performance, lowering liability, and increasing the safety of the community.  

Simply put, it is a new way to look at the government.