Prepared by Karti Subramanian

Scope of Analysis

In Boston, we know of many past and present pilots using remote sensing technologies to help one or more City agencies manage assets, monitor service delivery, or interact with citizens directly. But how much have we—as a community of city workers, planners, technologists, researchers, and advocates—really learned from these efforts? Are we any better equipped to cut through the “Smart City” hype to know what technologies, use cases, or individual projects have actually helped a city go from data collection to improved service delivery? And has the use of the technology been subjected to meaningful criticism from citizens, privacy groups, and advocacy groups so that consistent, transparent, and secure policies about privacy and data-integrity have been created and communicated publicly?

Our intuition and working hypothesis is that the answers to the questions above are mostly negative, that there remain many more questions than answers about “smart city” initiatives. And part of the reason for that is that, on any given “Smart City” pilot, neither the technology companies nor the government agencies involved have any reason to publish or document their learnings. Technology companies have little incentive to disclose that their product or solution fell short of its promised potential, and government agencies similarly face political and administrative barriers to disclosing their potential inability to make use of sensor-generated data.

This project seeks to change this dynamic. As a collaboration between many groups, the Local Sense Lab is itself the attempt to bring a new approach to the deployment and use of sensor technologies. The goal of this case study is to bring transparency to the approach, to document the Lab’s successes and failures in deploying the technology, in converting data into meaningful insights that improve service delivery, and in soliciting feedback and engagement from Boston citizens on how they’d like to see the City make use of this technology.

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