Crowdsourcing as data sharing: a regional web-based real estate development database

The paper describes a web-based database of residential and commercial real estate development projects, created by a regional urban planning agency in Metropolitan Boston. In Phase I, now complete, the tool is used to facilitate inter-agency information sharing, demonstrating the ability of web-base data collection tools to increase information sharing between government agencies by reducing transaction costs. Phase II, now under development, will expand the functionality of the website to allow the general public to contribute information to the database, as well as view and download its contents. The project is unusual in its integration of a crowdsourcing paradigm with traditional methods of spatial information sharing. The project demonstrates the potential for technology to facilitate data sharing in favorable contexts where interorganizational relationships and sharing norms exist.