Participatory Urbanism

I read about this today on the Urban-Atmospheres mailing list, how mobiles could shift from communication devices to measurement devices, enabling us to process and share data from our environments. This could enable citizens to be more active in monitoring and controlling their environment. One of the examples they give is monitoring air quality in a particular part of the city, and contribute to a better overall picture of air quality across the city. People could then act on this information to campaign for better air quality (for example) or take evasive actions. It would be interesting to see how something like this would work. Would people become more engaged in democratic process? or would they vote with their feet?