Big Data, Small Apps: Premises and Products of the Civic Hackathon
Connections and feedback among urban residents and the responsive city are critical to Urban Informatics. One of the main modes of interaction between the public and Big Data streams is the ever-expanding suite of urban-focused smartphone applications. Go
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Abstract Connections and feedback among urban residents and the responsive city are critical to Urban Informatics. One of the main modes of interaction between the public and Big Data streams is the ever-expanding suite of urban-focused smartphone applications. Governments are joining the app trend by hosting civic hackathons focused on app development. For all the attention and effort spent on app production and hackathons, however, a closer examination reveals a glaring irony of the Big Data age: to date, the results have been remarkably small in both scope and users. In this paper, we critically analyze the structure of The White House Hackathon, New York City BigApps, and the National Day of Civic Hacking, which are three recent, high-publicity hackathons in the United States. We propose a taxonomy of civic apps, analyze hackathon models and results against the taxonomy, and evaluate how the hackathon structure influences the apps produced. In particular, we examine problem definitions embedded in the different models and the issue of sustaining apps past the hackathon. We question the effectiveness of apps as the interface between urban data and urban residents, asking who is represented by and participates in the solutions offered by apps. We determine that the transparency, collaboration and innovation that hackathons aspire to are not yet fully realized, leading to the question: can civic Big Data lead to big impacts? Keywords App • Hackathon • Participation • Representation • Open governance
S.J. Carr (*) School of Architecture/Office of Public Health Studies, University of Hawaii Manoa, 2410 Campus Road, Honolulu, HI, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. Lassiter Department of Economics, Monash University, 20 Chancellors WalkMenzies Building, Room E. 970, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 P. Thakuriah et al. (eds.), Seeing Cities Through Big Data, Springer Geography, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40902-3_29
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1 Introduction In the age of Big Data, mobile technology is one of the most crucial sources of data exchange. Analysts are examining the preferences, behaviors and opinions of the public through status updates, tweets, photos, videos, GPS tracks and check-ins. In turn, urban residents are accessing the same data as they view restaurant reviews with Yelp, find a ride with Uber, and stream Instagram photos. Untethered devices such as smartphones and tablets are critical to real-time, on-the-go data uploading and access. On these mobile devices, the public is connecting to data through apps. Apps are becoming the primary interface between data and the public. At present, apps are primarily created by private companies seeking to profit from granular knowledge of urban behaviors. Yet, the allure and potential of apps is increasingly recognized by non-profit and government organizations, with development encouraged from the federal government all the way down to local municipalities. In the priv
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