Abstract
The American citizen relationship management (CiRM) system 311 achieved much success in recent years and has primarily been implemented by US cities in order to become more efficient, effective, and citizen-centric. 311 has evolved to a multi-channel CiRM system which offers a wide range of governmental services and in many cases, functions as a single contact point for any issue citizens could have within their neighborhoods. The system has a high potential for smart cities to improve governmental service delivery and offers citizens an opportunity to participate in decision-making processes. Especially mobile applications are assumed to facilitate faster and easier access to city governments. However, current research on the systems’ benefits for smart cities and the extent to which they help to increase civic participation is missing, wherefore the following chapter presents 311 systems from three smart US cities and discusses their potential for improvements in public administration.
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Acknowledgements
The author thanks all government officials from the City of New York, the City of Philadelphia, and the City of Boston for the time they spent with the interviewer and their openly shared perspectives. They provided valuable insights into NYC311, Philly311, and BOS:311.
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Hartmann, S. (2019). Citizen Relationship Management for Civic Participation: How Smart Cities use 311 to Involve Citizens. In: E-Participation in Smart Cities: Technologies and Models of Governance for Citizen Engagement. Public Administration and Information Technology, vol 34. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89474-4_4
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