{"title":"Dog fouling and potholes: understanding the role of coproducing ‘citizen sensors’ in local governance","authors":"P. Matthews, A. Parsons, Elvis Nyanzu, A. Rae","doi":"10.1080/03003930.2022.2116575","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Local governments around the world are increasingly coproducing services with citizens, commonly as a response to austerity. A common approach is to use ‘citizen sensors’, relying on citizens to report issues digitally through web portals or apps. There is mixed evidence about how different citizens act in different environments with concerns about resulting (in)equity in outcomes. This paper examines citizen-reporting of maintenance of the public realm through a UK digital platform (FixMyStreet.com). We find service requests follow a parabolic relationship between neighbourhood deprivation levels and reporting, but ignoring the contributions of ‘superusers’ there is a more linear relationship, with more reports in less-deprived areas. We find that the presence of significant infrastructure (transport, schools) leads to more reports, suggesting guardianship over journeys as well as residential neighbourhoods. We conclude that local government, when directly coproducing services with citizens, need to be careful to ensure equitable outcomes between neighbourhoods.","PeriodicalId":47564,"journal":{"name":"Local Government Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Local Government Studies","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2022.2116575","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Local governments around the world are increasingly coproducing services with citizens, commonly as a response to austerity. A common approach is to use ‘citizen sensors’, relying on citizens to report issues digitally through web portals or apps. There is mixed evidence about how different citizens act in different environments with concerns about resulting (in)equity in outcomes. This paper examines citizen-reporting of maintenance of the public realm through a UK digital platform (FixMyStreet.com). We find service requests follow a parabolic relationship between neighbourhood deprivation levels and reporting, but ignoring the contributions of ‘superusers’ there is a more linear relationship, with more reports in less-deprived areas. We find that the presence of significant infrastructure (transport, schools) leads to more reports, suggesting guardianship over journeys as well as residential neighbourhoods. We conclude that local government, when directly coproducing services with citizens, need to be careful to ensure equitable outcomes between neighbourhoods.
期刊介绍:
Local Government Studies is the leading journal for the study of local politics, policy, public administration and management and governance. First established in 1975, it is an influential forum for critical dialogue and exchange on local government and a vital resource for academics, politicians, policy makers and practitioners internationally. The editors welcome submissions in this field, particularly work of a comparative, methodologically innovative and theoretically challenging nature.