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What “people-power” means in a smart city
Paul Budde’s article “Democracy, people-power and the rise of the smart city,” published by Independent Australia on 18 November 2019, starts with a concern about faltering liberal democracies. It points to collective action in places including Hong Kong, London, Barcelona, Santiago and Beirut as evidence that people still organize to demand change. The article then asks whether cities can become practical settings for renewing democratic life.
The argument is not that every urban problem can be solved by a digital platform. It is that local issues give residents opportunities to work with elected officials, civil servants and civic organizations on matters they can see and experience: housing, transport, public space, safety, affordability and environmental quality. A city therefore becomes “smart” in a civic sense when its institutions make that cooperation possible and when residents have a meaningful route from expressing a concern to influencing a decision.
Budde connects his discussion to “Power, Hope and Social Change: The Rise of the City?”, an event organized by Sydney Ideas and the University of Sydney’s Policy Lab with the Sydney Alliance. He describes the Alliance as a coalition of community, religious, union and school organizations using community organizing to improve city life. That model matters because it treats residents as organized political actors rather than as isolated users submitting feedback.
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Why local government can strengthen democracy
National politics can make citizens feel distant from decisions, particularly when responsibility is divided among parties, ministries and agencies. Municipal questions are more tangible. A resident can identify a dangerous crossing, a rent pressure, a missing bus connection or a neglected park, then join with neighbors and organizations to make a specific demand.
Local government also has a practical reason to listen: it delivers or coordinates many of the services that shape everyday life. When a city creates a regular process for residents to define problems, weigh trade-offs and see what happened to their input, participation becomes a civic capability rather than a one-time consultation.
That capability requires more than an online comment box. People need associations that can recruit, explain technical choices, represent groups that are often overlooked and negotiate with officials. In Budde’s account, community organizations such as the Sydney Alliance and Citizens UK belong in the smart-city conversation alongside data systems and connected infrastructure.
Budde’s three-part model for smart-city governance
1. Political and administrative leadership
Budde identifies two complementary leadership roles: political leadership from the mayor and administrative leadership from the city chief executive. The mayor can establish a public mandate and resolve competing priorities; the city CEO can align departments, budgets and implementation. If either role is missing, projects can become fragmented. A mayor may announce an ambitious vision that departments cannot deliver, while an administration may optimize operations without a democratic mandate.
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2. Structures that cross bureaucratic silos
Traditional municipal structures divide work into transport, planning, housing, public works, health, technology and finance. Residents experience the overlap, but departments often measure only their own outputs. Budde calls for structural change that enables a holistic approach. For example, a street redesign can affect accessibility, storm-water management, business activity, public safety and housing; a single department cannot judge all of those consequences alone.
Cross-silo structures can include a permanent cabinet for shared priorities, joint program teams, common data standards and budgets tied to outcomes rather than departmental activity. The point is not to erase expertise. It is to make responsibility for shared outcomes visible and to give residents one coherent route into decisions.
3. Collaboration across institutions and with citizens
The proposed collaboration spans levels of government, city agencies, businesses, local stakeholders, universities and, above all, citizens. Universities can contribute evidence and evaluation; businesses can bring operational knowledge; community groups can identify lived effects and organize participation. None should replace public accountability. The city must disclose who decides, what evidence is used and how conflicts are resolved.
Technology can improve contact without sharing power
Ben Green’s chapter “The Democratic City: The Social Determinants of Technology’s Impacts,” published by MIT Press on 29 March 2019 in The Smart Enough City, draws a crucial distinction between communication and influence. A civic application can make it easier to contact government, find information or report a problem. That convenience does not automatically give residents a role in setting priorities or deciding how money is spent.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsA 311-style service lets someone report a pothole, broken streetlight or missed collection. The city receives useful information, and the resident may receive a ticket number or status update. The mechanism is transactional: it routes a request through an existing service system. It does not usually let residents decide which streets receive investment, how maintenance budgets are allocated or what trade-offs should be made when resources are limited.
Green contrasts that kind of tool with participatory budgeting and deliberative processes. In participatory budgeting, residents help decide how a defined pool of public money is used. In a deliberative process, participants receive information, hear competing perspectives, discuss alternatives and reach recommendations or decisions under rules that institutions have agreed to respect. Technology can support registration, translation, mapping, information sharing and voting, but the democratic innovation is the power and deliberative space created by the process.
Green’s conclusion is direct: “For technology on its own will not make cities meaningfully more democratic—it must be deployed to advance programs and policies that empower the public.” That principle is a useful test for any proposed smart-city system.
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Four civic mechanisms compared
| Mechanism | Primary function | What residents can influence | Democratic strengths | Typical limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 311-style service reporting | Collects requests and routes them to agencies | Usually the handling of an individual service issue | Fast contact, visible case tracking and better information about service conditions | Does not normally transfer authority over priorities or budgets |
| Engagement or consultation app | Gathers comments, surveys or ideas | Potentially the framing of a proposal, depending on institutional rules | Can reach more people and document a wider range of views | Responses may be advisory, unrepresentative or disconnected from a decision |
| Citizen assembly or deliberative forum | Brings a selected group together to learn, deliberate and recommend | Defined policy questions, when officials commit to responding | Creates time for evidence, trade-offs and reasoned discussion | Requires recruitment, support, accessibility and a clear route from recommendations to action |
| Participatory budgeting | Lets residents allocate a specified public budget | Which eligible projects receive funding within the agreed envelope | Provides a concrete source of public power and a visible decision | Influence is limited if the budget is small or the eligible choices are tightly restricted |
To assess any of these mechanisms, ask four questions: Does it collect information or give residents influence? Who can participate and whose voices are represented? Does it build deliberation, association and collective capacity? Have institutions committed to considering or acting on the outcome?
How to design a people-powered smart-city program
Step 1: Define the decision before choosing a platform
State the decision in plain language: for example, how to allocate a neighborhood improvement fund, where to place bus-priority measures or which public-space uses should be tested. Identify what is fixed, what is negotiable and who has legal authority. A vague promise to “engage the community” invites disappointment because participants cannot tell what their input can change.
Step 2: Map power, not only stakeholders
List the mayor, council, city departments, regional and national agencies, contractors, property owners, universities, unions, schools, faith groups and neighborhood organizations involved. For each, record formal authority, practical influence, relevant knowledge and accountability to the public. This map reveals where a platform might merely collect opinions while the real decision remains elsewhere.
Step 3: Build an offline participation route
Online access is uneven, and digital confidence varies by age, income, language, disability and immigration status. Provide staffed meetings, telephone or paper options, interpreters, accessible venues, childcare where feasible and compensation for substantial participant time. Work through trusted organizations that can recruit residents who are unlikely to discover a city website on their own.
Step 4: Set representation rules
Explain whether participation is open to all residents, selected by sortition, organized through groups or combined. Publish demographic information about who took part and identify groups missing from the process. A large number of clicks is not the same as a representative public. Deliberative bodies need balanced briefing materials and enough time to question experts.
Step 5: Match technology to the civic task
Use a reporting tool for service requests, a mapping interface for identifying locations, and a secure voting system only when the decision rules and eligibility are clear. For deliberation, prioritize tools that support accessible documents, translation, discussion and transparent moderation. Do not let a vendor’s feature list determine the policy design.
Step 6: Commit institutions in advance
Publish the timetable, decision-maker, budget envelope and response obligation before collecting input. After participation, release a decision record showing which proposals were accepted, changed or rejected and why. If officials can ignore the result without explanation, residents reasonably conclude that participation was symbolic.
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Step 7: Evaluate democratic outcomes
Measure more than app downloads or the number of submissions. Track who participated, whether participants learned from one another, whether organized groups gained capacity, how recommendations changed policy, how quickly officials responded and whether implementation matched the public decision. Publish the measures and invite an independent review of contested outcomes.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why collaboration is difficult in practice
Budde argues that political, bureaucratic, procurement and business structures make collaboration difficult. Departments protect their mandates and data; procurement rules can favor a single technical solution over a flexible civic process; elected leaders may prefer visible projects with short timelines; and businesses may have incentives that do not match public priorities.
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Practical responses include joint authority for cross-cutting programs, shared outcome measures, procurement requirements for interoperability and accessibility, public registers of meetings and decisions, and formal agreements with community organizations. Leaders should also budget for organizing and facilitation, not only software and sensors.
Barcelona and other examples in Budde’s account
Budde presents Barcelona as an example of restructuring systems and using smart-city strategies for social and economic aims. A later 2022 article by Budde describes Barcelona’s approach as moving toward people-centred policy and also discusses citizen assemblies and deliberative democracy. These are statements of Budde’s perspective, not independent verification of every city-specific claim.
The 2019 article names Cape Town, London, Cardiff, Chicago and Atlanta in connection with the Sydney event, and identifies Amsterdam and Copenhagen as places to watch. The list is useful as a set of cases for comparative study, but it should not be read as a ranking or as proof that any one city has solved the democratic challenges of smart-city governance.
The transferable lesson is to examine the institutional arrangement behind a project. Did residents help define the problem? Were community organizations able to organize and negotiate? Did the city change its structures or simply add a digital layer? Who controlled money, data and the final decision? Those questions reveal more than a showcase of sensors or an attractive interface.
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Common failure modes and how to correct them
“We launched an app, so participation is fixed.”
Problem: The tool improves contact but leaves priorities unchanged.
Correction: Attach it to a published decision process with a defined response and a route to collective deliberation.
“The loudest online group represents the city.”
Problem: Participation reflects access, time, language and organized networks rather than the whole population.
Correction: Combine open channels with targeted outreach, accessible offline options and transparent representation data.
“A consultation can cover every issue.”
Problem: An unlimited agenda prevents participants from understanding constraints or reaching a usable decision.
Correction: Set a specific question, explain legal and financial limits, and provide evidence in formats residents can examine.
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“Technology is neutral.”
Problem: Platform design can exclude people, expose sensitive data or privilege measurable requests over less visible needs.
Correction: Conduct accessibility, privacy and equity reviews; offer non-digital routes; and explain how moderation, ranking and data retention work.
“A pilot is automatically progress.”
Problem: A temporary experiment may gather ideas without changing permanent rules or budgets.
Correction: Define the conditions for scaling, the evidence required and the institutional owner before the pilot begins.
What residents should look for
- A precise promise: The city says what decision is open and what is already settled.
- A visible decision-maker: Residents know which council, agency or official must respond.
- Multiple ways to participate: Digital, face-to-face, phone and accessible written channels are available.
- Organized civic partners: Community, labor, school, faith and neighborhood groups can participate without surrendering independence.
- Evidence and trade-offs: Participants can inspect assumptions, costs, legal limits and competing impacts.
- A public response: The final decision records what changed because of participation and explains what did not.
- Follow-through: The city reports implementation, delays, spending and unintended effects.
The democratic test for a smart city
The phrase “smart city” often directs attention toward connectivity, automation and data. Budde’s analysis shifts the focus to leadership, institutional design and collective action. Green’s work supplies the necessary caution: a convenient digital interaction is not the same as public power.
A city passes the democratic test when residents can organize, deliberate and affect consequential choices; when officials coordinate across departments; when technology lowers barriers without deciding whose voice counts; and when institutions are obliged to explain what they did with the public’s contribution. Sensors and applications can support that work, but they cannot substitute for it.
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