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'SeeClickFix' Directly Alerts City Hall About Vandalism, Potholes

by Amar Toor on March 8, 2010 at 02:02 PM


Winter may be drawing to a painstakingly slow close, but the countless potholes it leaves in its wake can linger for much longer. Whereas most of us simply wait for the public works crew to get around to fixing the mini-craters in our streets, a new GPS-based Web site called SeeClickFix now gives citizens the ability to instantly alert municipal officials to problems worthy of their attention.

Ben Berkowitz, SeeClickFix's cofounder and CEO, recently spoke with NPR about the service, which uses GPS technology and smartphone photography to transmit evidence of public vandalism directly to city hall. According to Berkowitz, the idea for the site was born out of the difficulties he experienced in trying to contact local authorities about some graffiti on his neighbor's building. After multiple calls went unanswered, he decided to create the site, which sends automatic alerts to local governments whenever a citizen posts a photo of something in need of a fix. With the help of a specific smartphone app, users can send a picture of a vandalized storefront or pock-marked roadway, and can even transmit the exact GPS coordinates of the incident directly to local brass.

Having already spread well beyond U.S. borders, the service seems to have caught on pretty quickly, and is rapidly expanding. As Berkowitz claims, SeeClickFix not only has the potential to make local and municipal governments more accountable, but can even "encourage more participation at a civil level" by inspiring DIY-oriented community stewards to get out and take care of some problems themselves. The entire initiative, then, rests on the fundamental "squeaky wheel" logic. But, when traditional means of squeaking aren't loud enough, it's good to know that SeeClickFix is there to amplify our complaints and get our wheels greased. [From: NPR]

Tags: app, city, gps, infrastructure, LocalGovernment, seeclickfix, smartphones, top, toshiba

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