Soroosh Baghbanferdows - PHD Candidate at Istanbul Technical University

Enhancing public participation in urban planning practices has been always a centralconcern to urban planners. Crowdsourcing as an online, distributed problemsolving model, is able to harness collective intellect among the citizens and goesoutside the boundaries of organization to find problems, solutions and ideas. Thispaper firstly reviews the theoretical background of crowdsourcing and how thismodel is positioned in public participation paradigm. Then different criteria andapproaches both in business and governance are examined. Then with the aim todevelop a framework for using crowdsourcing in urban governance, a criterion forcategorizing the task each study undertake is proposed. In the meantime,administrative departments of Istanbul Municipality are selected to chart eachventure with the related department or departments. Twenty- two crowdsourcingventures are studied and charted in this framework. This framework providespractitioners and city officials the potentials of crowdsourcing and helps with thedeployment of model in each step and area of planning and governance.

Crowdsourcing, Urban Governance, Public Participation, Wisdoms of Crowds