Public Libraries at the Heart of the Cleveland Smart City Digital Portal Project (Poster 47)

The "Cleveland Smart City Project" is a groundbreaking urban initiative that pairs two distinctly unique components for smart city development: 1) a cooperative governance structure and, 2) public libraries collaboratively leading social transformation in Cleveland. A cooperative legal structure (i.e., NEOhio.us) is adopted to govern its members in smart city development, decisions, and initiatives. Guided by longstanding principles, such as voluntary and open membership that focuses on the community, a cooperative structure avoids reliance on a local government structure whose leadership and agendas change, based on election cycles and smart city initiatives may disappear. It also avoids problems of corporate-run smart city projects whose primary purpose is to generate profit, which may have unintended consequences resulting in social exclusion. The NEOhio.us cooperative partners with public libraries to link citizens, government, and community organizations and support a citizen-driven approach to smart city development. Libraries have long been trusted, supportive spaces where technology, information, and community come together to create opportunities for exploration, innovation, and lifelong learning. Public libraries are thus uniquely positioned to promote civic engagement, collaboration, and community building.
This poster presents the first phase of smart city development, focusing on the design of a digital portal for Cleveland citizens. Starting with the research problem, it explains the cooperative governance structure and the partnership with public libraries. and presents a summary of the information needs of over 100 interviews and focus groups with individual households, community organizations, and corporations, supplemented with relevant graphics, and a screenshot of the portal design.