A creative lab based in Sweden is challenging the top-down approach of how cities are made. The Connectors Society, based in the southern city of Malmö, launched The Crowdsourced City: A Guide to Reclaiming the Spaces Around You. The guidebook is designed to give you all the tools to understand the flows of a space, bring people together and collectively redesign the space based on the needs of the people who will use it.
"It’s about understanding the relationship between people and spaces. The spaces around us influence us. We need to be the ones to define these spaces," says Julieta Talavera, co-founder and self-proclaimed DIY Urbanist.
The Crowdsourced City is based on three years of experimentation, interventions in public spaces, workshops and hands-on research. Working with the City of Malmö, the group has developed practical methods to revitalize public spaces in collaboration between residents, local business owners and complex institutions. Available on Indiegogo, the guidebook will be released under Creative Commons as open-source content, meaning anybody can contribute to it and join a community of people reclaiming their city around the world.
Crowdsourced City Guidebooks
The Connectors Society Created a Toolkit to Reclaim Your City
Trend Themes
1. Crowdsourcing Civic Design - The Connectors Society's Crowdsourced City guidebook promotes a bottom-up approach to urban planning and design, utilizing the collective wisdom and creativity of city residents.
2. DIY Urbanism - The DIY Urbanist movement encourages individuals to take an active role in shaping their cities and reclaiming public spaces for their own needs and interests.
3. Open-source Urbanism - The Creative Commons release of The Crowdsourced City guidebook enables a global community to contribute to and benefit from the collective knowledge and experiences of people around the world.
Industry Implications
1. Urban Planning - The Crowdsourced City guidebook presents an innovative approach to city planning that involves collaboration between residents, local businesses, and institutions, opening up opportunities for urban planners to adopt more participatory models.
2. Community Development - The DIY Urbanist movement and the Crowdsourced City guidebook provide tools and resources for communities to come together, collaborate, and transform their local neighborhoods, highlighting opportunities for community development organizations to support grassroots initiatives.
3. Publishing - The open-source nature of The Crowdsourced City guidebook creates opportunities for publishing houses to explore new models of content creation and distribution that involve crowdsourcing and community participation.