Just like ZUP contributes to the achievement of public services in a municipality, assists public administrators to gather information about them and encourages citizens to participate in the governance, similar initiatives involve the population in maintaining the cities in several countries. Using digital technology, these free systems help residents and public administrators to obtain information on the status of streets, trees and services in a municipality.
In the state of South Australia, in Australia, the government created the My Local Services app. There the residents find information about essential services and can report problems in their communities. The application collects the user’s location and sends information about the place where s/he lives – from data on events and parks to the garbage collection days.
In Chicago, a group of volunteers created the ClearStreets app, which shows in real time if the streets are free from snow during the winter. The tool uses data from an open system of the City Hall of Chicago, Plow Tracker, which tracks snow plow trucks in real time. With the location data of the trucks, the app is able to find out which streets are being cleared for circulation.
Also in the United States, in San Francisco, a partnership between the government, non-governmental organizations, businesses and population resulted in the Urban Forest Map. The free app quantifies, qualifies and sorts the trees of the city. Among other uses, the database created by the system helps urban planners to manage trees in specific areas, track and combat diseases and plan where the next trees will be planted.
