Online citizen communities can empower smart cities

With over half a million citizens already connected across 100 city level online local communities, LocalCircles, a community social media network is showing how online citizen communities can empower smart cities. Today, it also announced  the availability of online citizen communities or groups for the 100 proposed Smart Cities of India.

The citizen communities enabled over the last month bring together citizens locally so they can get and stay connected, work together on giving inputs on city issues and solutions, participate in governance and work together with each other and the administration to make their city better.

Over half a million citizens, who have inclination to make their city better in some way have been given access to the communities that cover all the 100 proposed Smart Cities of India. Communities for another 50 cities are also in the process of enablement and will be up and running before month end.

“The connectivity of citizens at a local level is the first step to good local governance as issues, solutions and the collective action to make it happen, all emerges from within the community”, said Sachin Taparia, Chairman and CEO of LocalCircles. “If the city administration is willing to work with the citizens and get engaged, it will significantly increase the chances of success of an initiative like the Smart City Mission”, continued Taparia.

Citizens in many of these online communities are already discussing traffic, civic, safety, infrastructure and many other local governance issues as well as their solutions. Citizens in the communities belong to varied backgrounds ranging from RWA leaders, Senior Citizens, Social Workers, Homemakers, Doctors, Small Business Owners and Professionals, essentially representing a microcosm of the city, accessible on fingertips.

The city administration which will soon be given access to their respective local community can seek inputs on various local issues, causes, solutions as well as run citizen polls on various initiatives to better understand the collective pulse of the local community in real time. Also, they can share important updates with citizens ranging from an emergency situation to closures, social events, cleanliness drives, etc. which will be delivered in real time to the citizens in the community.

LocalCircles will soon have several other citizen communities in each one of these Smart Cities for other citizen needs like Law & Order, Health, Emergency/Blood Assistance, Consumer Issues and Swachh Bharat.

All citizens who want to join their city’s online local community are welcome to sign up on http://www.localcircles.com and find their respective City Circle. Once they are a member of one circle, they will be invited based on their background and interests to other local circles available.