Strengthening urban community governance through geographical information systems and participation: An evaluation of my Google Map and service coordination

Abstract

It is increasingly common for urban planners and local policymakers to adopt interactive technologies, such as geographical information systems (GISs), to inform their decision making and to enhance performance. This paper aimed to assess the role that interactive technology can play in enhancing urban governance to meet social needs by improving local organisations’ capacities, client access, and service effectiveness and responsiveness, as well as community building. Using the previous research framework on mapping community capacity developed by Brudney et al. (Community Development Journal, 2016, 52, 354) and Çöltekin et al. (Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 2009, 36, 5–17), we examined a simulated online interactive map for service provision in Hong Kong and interviewed around 20 local community organisations and 100 local residents about their user experience, their willingness to support its long-term adoption and their challenges. Our findings reveal that local residents find the interactive map helpful, particularly in improving service access, whereas local organisations are more reluctant to adopt such technology due to high maintenance costs. The implications of our study include the need to develop incentives to encourage technology adoption, to improve the capacity of local organisations and to establish better links between community organisations and local residents to identify sustainable financing (through crowdsourcing) for GIS applications to improve urban community governance.