As smart as a smart phone can get, it will never be a magic wand, although it actually has something in common with it: the ability to change the way we interact with the environment around us. That’s right, because although you can’t change the world with a click, you can actually improve the environment you live in just by using your smart phone. This is the idea behind Decoro Urbano, Urban Decorum, the Italian smart phone app, that aims to become a bridge between active citizenship and public administration, by enabling the citizens to report the problems related to garbage management, road sign, vandalism or green areas deterioration. All reports can be read and shared online and the city administrations that agree to be part of this network can use the map to monitor their territories and can update the status of the reports, briefing the citizens on the improvements and communicating the solutions that have been adopted. Decoro Urbano is a free service and it is inspired by other successful web 2.0 projects aimed at the development of active citizenship, such as NeighborGoods.Net, SeeClickFix.com and FixMyStreet.Ca. While the first website helps people save money and resources by giving them the possibility to share stuff with their neighbors, SeeClickFix.com and FixMyStreet.Ca represent similar ways of reporting problems related to the conditions of public places, in order to make them better.
