Social Sciences

This book critically assesses the potential and identifies the opportunities and challenges for local governments to embark on emerging geo-enabled practices. Advances in spatially enabled information and communication technologies (ICTs) have provided governments with the potential to enhance public participation and to collaborate with citizens. A new typology for classifying geo-enabled practices related to public participation (termed here as geo-participation) was first proposed. The emerging opportunities presented by geo-participation to improve government-citizen collaboration and government operations were demonstrated through a set of cutting-edge examples. These case studies were examined and critically assessed to shed light on local governments’ practices of soliciting citizen input and developing new ways of government-citizen interaction.Both researchers and local government practitioners may find this book helpful as it lays the foundation for researching and implementing geo-participation practices.