Soroosh Baghbanferdows - PHD Candidate at Istanbul Technical University

Enhancing public participation in urban planning practices has been always a central concern to urban planners. Crowdsourcing as an online, distributed problem solving model, is able to harness collective intellect among the citizens and goes outside the boundaries of organization to find problems, solutions and ideas. This paper firstly reviews the theoretical background of crowdsourcing and how this model is positioned in public participation paradigm. Then different criteria and approaches both in business and governance are examined. Then with the aim to develop a framework for using crowdsourcing in urban governance, a criterion for categorizing the task each study undertake is proposed. In the meantime, administrative departments of Istanbul Municipality are selected to chart each venture with the related department or departments. Twenty- two crowdsourcing ventures are studied and charted in this framework. This framework provides practitioners and city officials the potentials of crowdsourcing and helps with the deployment of model in each step and area of planning and governance.

Crowdsourcing, Urban Governance, Public Participation, Wisdoms of Crowds