As ideas go, this city council project is really something that could go far. The principle of involving citizens in the policing of their area is in response to Mr Citizen’s reluctance to be observed by video cameras wherever he walks. Smile you’re on camera is definitely an insidious UK malaise.

This idea started originally in Lewisham, UK and now has been taken on by Amsterdam’s local government and at the same time taken to a new level. It allows citizens to send through camera-phone pictures. With other words Citizen Joe does the watching, rather than the ubiquitous government camera only. People are able to pinpoint the problem on a Google Map. A marker is placed on the area with information on the complaint and how it is being dealt with. It will also save people time as they can check on the map whether somebody else has already reported the problem, such as for instance broken street lights.

What is interesting is that local government hopes that by involving the citizens, the project becomes a team task and the citizen might feel less helpless, while the maintenance crew for instance might be more inclined to feel motivated to perform, in order to keep a clean slate.

New York is also jumping on the bandwagon. The city’s 911 call centres will be able to receive camera-phone pictures and videos. And a relatively new call centre on 311 is able to respond to reports by citizens on “quality of life problems” or non-emergency services such as noisy neighbours or pothole repairs. New York’s service has morphed into a fuller service though with information on festivals, concerts etc also being available on this number. And these stats just makes one feel quite small: Since its inception in March 2003, the service has already handled 10 million calls(!) in over 170 languages at an average rate of about 33,000 calls per day.

As an aside, I have always had a high regard for New York’s city organization after I read a report on how some years ago they decided to give Hollywood a run for its money for a chunk of the film industry money. And how well they did with that. There is an entire department which handles everything for a film such as security, safety, traffic police etc. And their function is to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Check Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky. That central spot in New York around Times Square was closed for traffic for that film shoot. Wow. Try that in any other major city.

This kind of interaction between the citizen and government bodies is a great idea. Lets hope your city government near you will implement something like this, or something even better, soon.