Smart Communities Meet Urban Management: Harnessing the Potential of Open Data and Public/Private Partnerships through Innovative E-Governance Applications

Consistently with international and European Union’s objectives to deliver economic and social benefits by harnessing the potential of information and communication technology, research and development efforts are mushrooming worldwide to innovate governance and management practices. Under the smart cities paradigm, local governments’ digital agendas are blending with public utilities’ innovations under the thrust of social networking and open data initiatives. In this paper we focus on the development of an internet-based mobile application to improve urban utilities management, with special regard to public open space maintenance and local transport. As for designing innovative spatial data services, we dwell on the integration of geo-tagged territorial objects from technically validated databases and user-created contents. From an e-governance perspective, key issues appear to concern the links between sense of place and willingness to participate in crowdsourcing activities, and the management synergies needed to reconcile shrinking budgets and growing citizen expectations.