From SmarterCities

Welcome to CityWiki

CityWiki is the Smarter Cities forum for the discussion of the criteria and methodology that will be used in evaluating U.S. cities in future versions of our research. We invite city officials, urban planners, members of academe and all of our readers to participate in the open discussion of what constitutes a smarter, more sustainable city.

Citywiki is a wiki, which means that anyone with a Smarter Cities account can easily edit or add articles. We welcome new articles, especially those about cities to watch, interesting initiatives that are really making a difference, innovative new laws and policies, etc, but at the present time, our hope is to engage you in a collaborative process of editing/strengthening the criteria that we will use in evaluating urban progress toward sustainability. Drafts of the criteria are listed in the content area below, along with lists of data sources we plan to use to measure progress, and survey questions we are considering asking city government officials to answer in order to fill any gaps in the data. Your knowledge and your perspective will be invaluable as we work together to shape a solid set of criteria and identify the best tools by which to gather the most useful information.

To get started, you need only to create a user account. For those, like us, who are new to wiki, we encourage you to use the help tool before editing and adding content. Please restrict changes on Criteria article pages to modifications of and additions to Descriptions, Data Sources and Survey Questions. We are happy to receive comments and conduct discussions on the Criteria discussion pages. Please also note that because of the open nature of this wiki, the content and opinions expressed here represent those of its users and not the NRDC.

We plan to continue this wiki content development process through the end of September, after which time we will work with a 6-8 member advisory body, preparing the final drafts of the criteria and study methodology for the next research round of Smarter Cities. We are excited that you will be joining us in this collaborative learning process.

Creating a New User Account

Becoming a new user is simple—all you need to do is create a user name and password following the create account instructions at UserLogin.

Criteria

Thank you for all your comments. We are keeping this section open, but comments received after October 1 will not be included for consideration in our 2010 research round.