Difference between revisions of "Crowdfunding Urbanism"

Revision as of 01:43, 12 December 2014

Crowdfunding is known as an effective way to support innovative ideas and intentions. Especially when it comes to independent music publishing and event management, as well as for product design, crafts and small scale projects crowdfunding is established as a working tool. To use crowdfunding in the urban planning procedure is by now a mainly untested, but promising field. It arises out of a desire to make the process of urban development more legible. The call for more transparency in decision-making and self-governance demand a new instrument for the public’s participation.

For aspiring entrepreneurs, Indiegogo’s founder Danae Ringelmann’s advice is simple – “Don’t wait for perfect. Get started as early as you can, and don’t try to boil the entire ocean at once. Many people get paralysis from analysis, where they design their perfect business plan, or their perfect non-profit, or their perfect album, and when this analysis keeps you from taking action, that’s no good.”

The following article will answer some important questions about public property, financial system operations, potentials and problematic and will give a possible vision to use crowdfunding for urban planning in a realistic and successful way.

Basic Facts

"Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.”

Definitions

CROWD
means a large number of persons gathered together, a throng; a group of people united by a common characteristic, as age, interest, or vocations; a group of people attending a public function; an audience: The play drew a small but appreciative crowd; a large number of things positioned or considered together.

FUND
is a saved, collected or provided amount of money for a particular purpose; needed or available money to spend on something

PUBLIC SPACE
According to our research the definition of a public space by the American Planning Association is the most appropriate: „A public space may be a gathering spot or part of a neighborhood, downtown, special district, waterfront or other area within the public realm that helps promote social interaction and a sense of community. Possible examples may include such spaces as plazas, town squares, parks, marketplaces, public commons and malls, public greens, piers, special areas within convention centers or grounds, sites within public buildings, lobbies, concourses, or public spaces within private buildings.“

Conditions

Nowadays almost everyone around the world knows the concept of Crowdfunding, how it works and what it is used for. In the small scale of material things the problems are reduced and can be easily overviewed. If we take a look on the bigger scale, we have to handle with important legal questions and government rules. Although Crowdfunding is difficult to insert in public space, there are a lot of platforms, which see the potential and realise Urban Crowdfunding projects. On this occasion the important questions are: What is the process of financing a new place or a new building, situated on a public space? To whom does this piece of country belong? Who may join in? Who makes the final decision?

Urban Crowdfunding helps to finance projects in the public space, these include activities like embellishing or appreciating urban spaces, building communities and facilities, improving living quality, encouraging connections, pushing forward self motivation, strengthening creativity... Most popular examples for worldwide Crowdfunding projects in urban areas: Imake Rotterdam-Bridge, New York +Pool, Robocop statue Detroit, Low line New York, Kulturrisauna, Renew Newcastle,...

Crowd

Via online Platforms, like spacehive, neighboorland, citizinvestor, brickstarter, ioby, indiegogo and Co. users can present and describe their ideas of a project. The project conversion implicates high costs. To reach the whole amount for the project, people can help in form of pledging via Crowdfunding Platforms in urban space. If the total investment sum is reached, the project can be realised. Short: Massfinancial system via Online Platforms to change public space.

Most of the funders are relatives or friends, who want to support the dream of the designer to come true. Other funders that support projects get the opportunity to help creating civic spaces more lively by contributing whatever they like. Some people donate projects because it will make their area a nicer place to live in. Some are doing it because it will support the local economy or their business. Others help just because they think the idea is brilliant and want to encourage innovation and creativity in their civic spaces. Supporting a project is more than just pledging funds. It’s a way of voting for the kind of community you want to live in.

In most cases, the majority of funding initially comes from the supporters and friends of each project. If they like it, they’ll spread the word to their friends and networks, and so on. Press, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and Spacehive itself are big sources of pledges as well. We also have a number of match-funding schemes designed to make it even easier for certain types of project to hit their target.

Participants

Projects can be created by local people, architects, artists, companies, councils, community organisations, and groups of friends,… shortly - by EVERYONE with a great idea. They can be modest or ambitious. Every project is unique and is something that helps to improve the fabric of communities. The only condition is that you must be at least 18 years old. At the age of 18 you are of full age and punished for your own actions and faults.

Charges

Online Platforms just offer available space for ideas and concepts – this service is free of charge. With the realisation of a project, transaction costs occur. Online Platforms charge an administration fee if, and only if, a project successfully hits its funding goal. Usually the fee is about 5% of the total of your item costs. All fees are clearly displayed within the costs for each project. Transaction costs for instance with PayPal deduct fees ranging from 1.4% - 3.4% of the whole amount + 20p per pledge - only if the project hits its funding goal. GoCardless is the second famous online direct debit payments system. The fee for a GoCardless pledge is 0.5% of the pledge.

Online Platforms do not promise to realize the project – they are just a stepping stone for finding potential financiers. It’s the legal responsibility of the Project Delivery Manager to complete his project. Everyone can see who they are by looking at the grey box on each project page. Platforms are not involved in the development or delivery of the projects themselves. They do not guarantee projects but, to help reduce risk, all projects are verified prior to fundraising to establish their viability. The verification process is carried out by experts in civic projects - like Locality and ATCM.

Crowdfunding as an appropriate tool for urban planning

On September 17, 2011, a few hundred demonstrators gathered in lower Manhattan and prepared to occupy Wall Street, the symbolic heart and center of the US financial system. With the slogan: "We are the 99 percent!” the activists occupied a nearby privately owned public space called Zuccotti Park to set up a camp. These occupations followed a wave of protest around the world (like protests in Spain and Greece against austerity), but were mainly inspired by several movements in the Arabic region, like the Iranian Green Movement in 2009 and the Arab Spring that spread from Tunisia in 2010 to Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, and elsewhere in 2011.

In general, the occupations of 2011 did not have the same goals. But there were important similarities beyond the similarity of tactic. In each country young people, facing economic, financial and cultural crisis, used social networking media to organize the occupation of common space. The occupations are nonhierarchical structured and promoted an egalitarian, non-alienated form of interaction. As an element of political protest, the occupation underlines the importance of space for social movements.

All social movements are organized in space, but some of them are mainly about space itself. An occupation, Peter Marcuse argued, "also has a second function: it is an opportunity to try out different forms of self-governance, the management of a space and, particularly if the physical occupation is overnight and continuous, of living together"

As Peter Marcuse further explains, "When space is occupied by the movement, it gives it a physical presence, a locational identity, a place that can be identified with the movement that visitors can come to, and where adherents can meet". According to David Graeber, an early organizer of OWS, "the great advantage of Zuccotti Park was that it was a place where anyone interested in what we were doing knew they could always come to find us, to learn about upcoming actions or just talk politics"

In this sense, the occupy movement can be understood as political (re-)conquest of public space.

Potential

In a direct consequence of the global occupy movement, the value of public space gain more importance in people’s minds. A call is made for a necessary demand to renegotiate the ordinary borders of public. While occupying alleged open spaces, the symbolic space, as well as the actual space is reinterpreted by the community. Common social and political values are questioned, in order to expand the potential of self-governing in urban space.

A shared space belongs to the public and makes participants to individuals with equal political and legal footing in the process of using and defining the open space. In this sense public property can be understood as political process, with the objective to ensure an expanded participation and a democratic self-determination.

Inappropriately the current policy and local bureaucracy are contrary to a preferable participating process in urban planning.

Due to the increasing of privatization and commercialization of public property, also the need for liberation is growing. The regeneration of the strength of potent ideas is effectively mainstreamed by new impulses in urban design and the (re-)discovery of common space by the crowd. The city itself must not remain unimpeachable. The urban design, the urban meaning and the urban use is open in its definition.

Crowdfunding as democratic instrument

To achieve the common demand of recovering public spaces it needs an appropriate form of organization, a space, a defined category and subject. For that matter the virtual space is considered as the important key to more democracy. The internet can be used as common source, which enables a free exchange of ideas. A joint study by BVDW, IAB Austria and IAB Switzerland for digital user behavior, shows that more than 90% (53 million habitants) of the German-speaking area uses the internet at least once per day in an average of 3 hours in 2014. The study applies to Germany (92%), Austria (92%) and Switzerland (88%).

According to this fact, the internet seems to be a perfect tool to reach a big crowd, as well as to coordinate the projects itself. It can be used as a democratic instrument, which enables a decision-making process. The user takes the role of an equal and equivalent participant.

Crowdfunding expands participatory processes

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Crowdfunding as an alternative way of funding urban projects

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Risk

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Suspicious intentions behind

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Global participation entail local effects

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Projects in urban scale need huge investments

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Recognition

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Hard facts

Definitions

BUILDING LAW
The public building law contains all the regulations which affect the use of the ground, what is built on the ground, whatever is removed or altered. The private building law regulates the interests of ground owners.

PLANNING LAW
The entity of regulations that focus on urban and regional planning, land use regulations, building planning and the legal effects of all these laws.

The building- und planning law situation in the german-speaking area

The building industry is regulated by a number of laws. (The developement of residential areas and the construction of buildings is regulated by the public administrative law.) Those laws often set limits to the interests/designs of constructors and ground owners. The construction of a new building needs to be notified in order to be in accordance with the building laws. The individual building permit is the lowest in the hierarchy of construction regulations. According to our definitions a urban crowdfunded project is a individual building project.

Who is responsible

Since the constitutional law in Austria does not regulate the construction and regional planning law, all the building regulations are beeing handled individually by the provinces and not the state (of austria, germany and switzerland) itself.

Public and private building law

The building law can be devided into two sections: the public and the private building law.

The public building law contains all the regulations that focus on the use of the ground, what is built on the ground, whatever is removed or altered. These regulations aim to retain public interests.

The private building law contains all the regulations that focus on private property, neighbor laws, contracts, liabilities etc. The use of the ground is genereally a matter of the ground owner. He is able to do whatever he wants with his property as long as his interests are covered by the constitutional law (which of course includes the building and planning law) and don't interfere with public interests.

What needs to be notified, what doesn't

Certain buildings such as military facilities and energy producing structures are not included in the constitutional law. The construction of such facilities is possible without a permit.

Does not need to be permissioned

• ponds with a certain depth and size
• fences with a overall appearance of the locality
• sculptures and decorational wells

Needs to be permissioned (a building permit is neccessary)

• new buildings and additional buildings
• demolition of buildings
• change of use of a building

Needs to be notified (the public autorities need to be informed and have to accept)

• additionla buildings to anexe
• safety walls
• safety roofs

How can be built in public space

The decisions of a individual planner without any legal regulations would probably lead to a building and area developement which is not covered by public interests. Not only important rules/aims to retain the common good would be in jeopardy, but also the prevention of any dangers and other social matters need to be retained. The regulations in the building and planning law say that buildings/Therefore buildings

• can not be erected in unsuitable places
• need to have a low use of resources
• can not interfere with the overall appearance of a place

As a result it can be said, that the aim of the building and planning law is to enforce these regulations when it comes to a (individual) construction activity. The common good needs to be preserved and the building and area developement has to happend in the best way possible.

who decides what can be built

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scenario

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Prospect

A connection between crowdfunding and urban development is getting stronger. The applicability of crowdfunding on urban space plays in the previous analysis of the topic a minor role. Crowdfunding Urbanism is not comprehensively considered. Crowdfunding is rather examined as a financing instrument in general or in relation to other subject areas (Kickstarter, journalism, etc.). Fundamentally, the question of transferability of crowdfunding project on urban development, which usually differ in their complexity and their impact on typical Kickstarter project. How should existing models of crowdfunding be adapted in order to apply at city-based projects?

Pioneers in this field are the urban researcher Dan Hill and Bryan Boyer. Brick Starter is a book that they present und it shows us the new form of platform for crowdfunding urbanism. In their view, it is necessary to realign community decision-making on public space. Instead of state-institutionally organized citizen surveys, where rejection of projects is regularly expressed, the active organization, discussion and support of projects should be possible.

Stay Tuned

In terms of the structure of crowdfunding platforms in urban context, not only the motivation of the Funder is important, but also the motivations of initiators are interesting. In Netherlands, Architects take the initiative and come up with new strategies to counteract the crisis in their workfield. ZUS architects use the new hype of crowdfunding and put it in the public space for their idea. A 350 meter long wooden bridge spans between two districts. One of these neighbourhoods is suffering from social exclusiveness. The intention is to solve the situation due to building a connecting bridge. The funding will be secured by the sale of wooden boards, in which the name of the respective benefactor is engraved. This project makes clear that the interested citizens receives only a financial part in the reaction.

The project is sufficiently developed and advanced, so that it is only need to be financed. The state treasury is empty and as an alternative investor citizen can be used. It is important to choose a proper strategy, so that the interest in the project of the investor is still there and in further step to move him to finance the project. Different incentive structures of crowdfunding platforms, brings the platform-users to become investors. Understanding this motivation is important for the selection of the appropriate instrument and for the success of a crowdfunding campaign. Emotional connection between Investor and the projekt is also very important for the success. It could be said that a well-organized crowdfunding campaign is working due to the traditional marketing model known as AIDA principle. Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. Sense of belonging in a community, responsibility for own environment and social responsibility are guiding terms, which combine public life and the space in which it takes place. Everyone feels automatically responsible for existing problems and social exclusion, as described in the example. To do so, seems easy. To buy a buy a wooden board, for instance, which takes part in a huge urban development. The task of Uncle Sam, to protect, to help and to watch over the city, to manage the resources and to solve social problems, is now the task of the community and participating actors. Citizens are asked in a very gentle and playful form to the checkout. If the community already takes part in funding, the potential of a crowd is certainly even higher.

What about us

Detroit example with the Robocop statue shows the importance of balance between global participation and local impact. It should be protected against dubious initiatives. The dubiousness is strengthened by the unilateral, favorable choice. Either one finds the project well and has the opportunity to invest in this projekt or ignor and hope for the dogmatic decision of the Mayor, who cares for the cityview, and will stop the project.

Such thinking would contradict to the Laclaus and Mouffes discourse about postmarxism hegemony theory. The public community is strengthened by conflicts and different opinions. The more conflict the more public - less consensus. If i dissagree with the project, than i would like to have a valve in order to express my displeasure. Certain number of "likes" and collected money amount is regarded as a democratic decision. The public space is a platform in which a "Dislike" should have space. A "Dislike", which is not marked out of spite and bad temper, but shows a desire for an alternative solution. Furthermore, it is the world-wide participation and interest in issues related to the local context. We do not limited by our immediate, noticeable physical environment where already our neighbors are regarded as outsiders strangers. Our environment is the world, and the border is widely extended. But does our mental perception relate to our physical world? Should an outsider from Internet decide about our enviroment or it should be the neighbour? The “Stadtmacher” have an answer to this question and limit the possibility of starting an investment on local environment.

We can do it

One of the major goal of crowdfunding campaigns, besides the financal part of the projekt, is to build a network of supporters. Projects that are planned in urban areas bring a large number of actors with it. There is a need for new methods of communication between actors of urban development. Crowdfunding platforms can contribute. It is known that the variety and diversity of the urban development stakeholders is identified, highlighte the difficulties of communication between these actors. Even more surprising is the lack of tools that could help to organize an exchange between planning authorities, the private and the public. As a consequence, decision-making processes on the development of urban space are perceived as not open and difficult to read. A platform that allows communication between the various stakeholders would clarify such kind of processes and make them open for interested.

„Stadtmacher“ is a project of Urbanista group that deals with the communication and mediation work between different actors. They are alredy one step further. „Stadtmacher“ have recognized that a large potential lies not only in funding by a crowd, but also in the crowd itself. The concept of crowdfunding should be seen as a form of crowdsourcing, in which the resources of the crowd can be used for ideas, feedback and possibility to generate solutions to specific problems. Cognitive force of a crowd would improve the development process of a project. Crowdfunding as a new instrument should be understood as a participation-based urban development.

The idea behind it is as follows: „Stadtmacher“ is a platform for civil projects in public space. Project ideas for your own city be submitted on this platform and go through several stages of development until the possible implementation of ideas. The special feature of this strategy is that no one is left with his own idea for alone. The ideas are developed and launched towards implementation together with the „Stadtmacher-Team“ - both by expert advices, and by building a crowdfunding platform. They lead you through the first steps until the whole project will be financed. In five steps to success, this is the promise of the „Stadtmacher“-Team. But if you take a detailed look, it gives the impression that the success of the project is not guaranteed. The euphoric initiative of citizens to participate actively in urban development is hampered by many bureaucratic barriers and official hurdles. Should the project fail because of the legislation?

Next Steps

„The new stage in crowdfunding is all about civilians directly funding and marketing public goods, making their own neighborhood, village and city more attractive.”

New York Times

After the initial investigation of the topic and more detailed analysis of many aspects, we notes, that it takes some more time and research to generate a working platform for crowdfunding in a public space. An urban crowdfunding platform should be able to respond flexibly to the needs of the individual case and support the development and adaptation of crowdfunding instruments. In many german cities the popularity of Crowdfunding Urbanism rises and can already note the first successes. Vienna, for example, promotes citizens to stand up for their own city and to shape them. Thus, crowdfunding is intended as crowdsourcing Urbanism and shows a new, perhaps pioneering page.

Crowdsourcing in Public Spaces

Crowdsourcing_Urbanism

Literature

• Tayfun Belgin (Hrsg.): Christine und Irene Hohenbüchler – ... ansehen als ..., ... regarding as ... König u. a., Köln u. a. 2007, ISBN 978-3-9502333-0-8.
• Dorothee Messmer, Markus Landert (Hrsg.): Wilde Gärten. Christine und Irene Hohenbüchler. Niggli, Sulgen u. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7212-0523-5.

References

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