Cities. They’re the spots on Earth where issues of social tension, economic inequality and environmental impact intersect and sizzle the hottest – all mashed against a buzz of people with different ideas and different backgrounds living together in the same space. They also might be the keys to sustainability.

This post is coming together in the middle of University of Illinois Chicago’s Innovation Center, where I’m sitting in a sea of laptops and iPhones glinting blue light off the glasses of their owners. Terms like Gov2.0, open-source and data visualization are being thrown around with much enthusiasm – and I’m feeling not unlike a goldfish out of his bowl.

I’m at CityCamp Chicago, a 2-day event billed as an “unconference” for people interested in getting city governments to open their data about things like crime, transit, infrastructure and the political process to the public. Nearly everyone here is a techie of one kind or another, most of whom are interested in snagging that data and building social media sites and mobile phone applications that’ll pave the way for greater “urban usability” (they love that phrase). The catch-all term for these cutting-edge processes is Gov2.0 – or using citizen-created social technology to make governments more transparent, efficient, participatory and usable.

I’m here as part of my work with Nonprofitmapping.org, but am also looking to bone up on what the tech community is doing around sustainability. A whole lot, as it turns out – most of which  isn’t being tagged as “sustainability.” But whatever Gov2.0 is billed as, it appears to be good for democracy, good for neighborhoods, and good from an environmental perspective.

2 brief examples:

*Cities don’t treat all their citizens equally. Releasing government data to the public means that those stories won’t remain uncovered for long – or, for that matter, unsolved. NPO’s, intrepid citizens, and neighborhood leaders can arm themselves with the specifics of where and what goes to whom – giving them the tools to fix those problems in ways that city governments simply can’t, for budgetary or political reasons.

*Cities might be the keys to sustainability. That’s because they’re dense, creative places where the following equation is being put together: wiredness + open data = efficiency. And efficient in several realms: economic, time, energy, materials. You could go on. We already know that dense cities like NYC boast lower per capita carbon emissions than their rural and suburban counterparts. And that same city just released its data about public transit, soon to be transformed by the public into time-saving, carbon-cutting, civic-engaging iPhone apps. Other data might get bike routes traced,  community gardens mapped, and traffic congestion avoided. All of this is getting done by eager programmers and citizen journalists at a cost-savings to government.

So – while not always pertaining directly to the topical concerns of sustainability – this stuff might represent the gritty grunt work of making the larger ideas possible. Neighborhoods have to be strong to grow cultural change. People have to feel like they have a meaningful say in local government before they can care for the world around them. And energy and materials efficiency can’t happen without the data flows to back it up.

One of the designing themes of the Butterfly Generation is “better not bigger.” I’m getting the feeling that that’s exactly what’s taking place in this room. The conversations today around innovative, citizen-led participation in government and city operations sound like the very definition of making existing systems better – and often with a cut in net resource intensity. More to come on cities, Gov2.0, and technology’s interesting role in cultural change. But for now, here’s a recent tweet from @AlexSteffen that’s got my thinking juices flowing: @AlexSteffen: Young climate fighters: head to the cities, dig in, find your allies and get creative!

Funny that the rush of urban life is being touted as our ecological savior, right? Yeah – irony not lost. Many interesting things to say/converse about this, but…when it’s light outside.

Image credit: Flickr/wrkng

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