The Neighborhood Parks Council, a park advocacy group in San Francisco has developed an internet-based technology that allows citizens to give instant feedback and monitoring on the condition and maintenance of city parks. According to an article in the Oregonian:
ParkScan is an interactive Web site that the public can use to share compliments or concerns about city parks. The observations go to a parks maintenance supervisor for action. “We call it the eyes and ears of our park system,” Fish said……Portland is the first city to adapt the program for its own use. The program was developed with a $150,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The concept was tested during a four-month pilot project in 36 East Portland parks.
The idea is to allow citizens to report unpainted equipment, broken playground equipment or benches, denuded turf and the like. The feedback fields provided are: location, condition, comments and hazard. In addition, users can upload photos documenting their feedback. A tutorial is available here.
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