The Responsible Citizen
INTEGRA attempts to change human society through FOUR banal, individual concepts: Responsible, Active,
Networked and Documenting. The RAND person.
Personal Responsibility:
1. We define Personal Responsibility as the simple 5-8 minutes-a-day activity to document all daily, family/locality
events. If you are sufficiently responsible to document each event and action, the INTEGRA system will reward you
as a personal organizer and reminder: it will show you all the personal and business information (past and future)
entered by you and other parties by: date, subject, priority, partnering entity and more.
2. We define Social Responsibility as the complex process of novel solutions to face social problems.
Ideas, products, services or models – that profoundly change the basic routines, beliefs or resource and
authority flows of the community/social system in which they occur. These solutions are introduced by
citizens and civil community/society actors that find no adequate solutions in the private market or in macro-
level welfare policies. To convey an image of safety, value, convenience and well-being a public property or
space must be actively used, well-maintained, and offer a range of programmed activities as well as
opportunities for informal leisure pursuits. Faced with decreasing capital and maintenance budgets -
community groups can help to fill the gap.
Neighbourhood Residents Responsibility and Participation in Maintenance of Public Spaces:
1. INTEGRA slightly extends the span of responsibility of every citizen beyond his/her family and
apartment. The citizen is called to take part, clearly defined, in responsibility for an item or service in
the public domain. A kind of adoption. If every citizen behaves this way - our lives will surely change
for the better.
2. Involving the public in the affair of their neighbourhood public spaces is fundamental: planning, design,
construction, maintenance and upgrading. Neighbourhood public space is owned both by the local
authority and the local residents. Public participation is important to the sense of responsibility of the
residents to their own neighbourhood. However, the concept of the local citizens maintaining their own
public spaces is still an uncommon concept in most of the countries.
3. Maintaining public space is almost always perceived as the duty of the local authority alone.
Results of researches show that lack of time and lack of coordinating bodies contribute to the barriers in
public participation. Public properties and spaces which are managed solely through conventional bodies
such as local authorities are usually poorly maintained and often, underused, as well as
underappreciated. The main cause behind the declining of maintenance of these properties and spaces is
due to lack of funds. In addition to maintenance, public spaces and properties lack monitoring and
inspections by the local authority.
4. Most of the residents are concerned with the surrounding issues. But this concern did not translate
into action as most of them think that the main responsibility to tackle the issue is the authority. Lacking of
resources from the municipality and the resident not being motivated to cooperate in maintenance and
current operation of public facilities – go hand in hand in the decline of these facilities. There is always a
certain gap between the willingness to perform a specific behaviour and to actually do so.
5. The response to reduced budgets is to develop a variety of groupings and alliances designed to
address maintenance, safety, education, and fund-raising in public places and projects. These non-
profit civic upkeeping/stewardship initiatives are more and more widespread. The opportunities for positive
results are enormous because they give people a greater feeling of control which, in turn, fosters a
sense of ownership and pride. Examples of community and citizen involvement are detailed below (item
9).
6. Public spaces reflect the soul of a neighbourhood. Well maintained public spaces are a mirror on how
the neighbourhood’s engagement with their outdoor surrounding. Still, there are two major REASONS
that deter public from Participation-by-Invitation: lack of time and lack of coordinating body.
7. The ultimate or, at least partial, answer to these two reasons that hinder public participation is: HIGH-
RESOLUTION COMPUTERIZED PLATFORM on RESIDENTS and PUBLIC ASSETS/ITEMS.
8. INTEGRA sorts out the individuals or families with plenty of time, those who are not busy (in work)
during the public participation hours, those who are living near the public spaces and are competent in doing
the specific tasks required.
✓ INTEGRA sorts out all retired residents living nearby
✓ INTEGRA sorts out all available youngsters (14-18 years old) during school holidays
✓ INTEGRA sorts out all unemployed citizens living nearby
✓ INTEGRA connects school classes with one-time or periodical missions in public spaces projects
✓ INTEGRA locates all students, professionals, consultants etc’ who are, potentially, concerned with
a specific public space/property maintenance or construction.
9. INTEGRA extends the individual or family Responsibility beyond their private property into public
assets or items. Every citizen or family should be responsible on a slot or piece of public asset
adjacent or near their living place. INTEGRA, systematically, stores, identifies and tracks every public
asset and its items. INTEGRA does the same, still in high-resolution, with citizens and families. INTEGRA
can, easily, links between residents and public places or items and associate them under a
participative/collaborative responsibility of the residents and the local authority. The legal, financial
and technical responsibility is still in the city authority hands. Collaboration, support, monitoring,
inspections, small-scale DIY operations of public space items SHOULD be done by the community
residents. Public places and items should be under tight control, care and responsibility of residents a well.
Every alert, call, report, maintenance work, suggestion, advice, voluntary time, help or donation are recorded
in INTEGRA database under the public place or item records (15012 segment) and the citizen/family
records.
✓ Adopt-a-Park by Schools: INTEGRA provides a computerized platform for school classes to
participate in activities in parks and green spaces. The idea is that every school will adopt a park. Each
class (ages 13-18) will receive responsibility for seasonal projects and ongoing activities in the park.
A range of young volunteers, including volunteers from the elderly and the visually impaired will carry out
tasks such as: planting, pruning, weeding, painting, equipment inspections, installing and operating digital
boards, staff information booths, debris removal
✓ Adopt-a-Park by Individuals: INTEGRA provides a computerized platform for locating
volunteers with specific qualifications to provide "eyes on their local park", to augment surveillance, and
increase public awareness of safety issues in the community. INTEGRA will locate the elderly
candidate(s), living near the green space or park, better - owning a dog and/or licensed weapon.
Both of these examples and other strategies, as well, broaden the community of people having a personal
stake and interest in the community parks and, of course, are cost-saving measures.
10. Residents and visitors can send their complaints, requests, queries, suggestions and inquiries
to other residents or the responsible council department - attaching various kinds of real-time,
multimedia data (150, 1501, 15012, 1592 segments). This proactive method, direct data, allows for the
gathering of significant information about the eventual state of public spaces and assets/items.
11. INTEGRA goes one step further: Environmental Responsibility or Stewardship. INTEGRA allows
and recommends nominating a responsible citizen / resident for every city public property item. This
person will be responsible to keep track, repair, maintain, and cultivate the state of this property (gardening
cell, park's facility, monument, parking lot, sidewalk vegetation, street lighting, tree cultivation and
irrigation). Larger properties are cared by or communal committees/groups. All these -
side by side, hand in hand with the municipal authorities. With INTEGRA every public property/space is
identified and managed by a unique number or identifier. It is, additionally, taken care of by a
responsible, volunteering resident or group of citizens.
Responsibility in the Community and Social Issues:
1. INTEGRA provides a full infrastructure in creating community bodies that will coordinate and
spearheading the involvement of the neighbourhood residents to be involved specifically in public space
maintenance: Community Residents Committees/Neighbourhood Associations (CRC/NA), Roads
Committees and Buildings Committees. INTEGRA sketches in detail the well-functioning coordination
mechanism of these bodies that will advance the process of public participation. Coordination mechanism is
mean to unite the effort of all interested residents: clear goals and strategies as well as defined roles and
responsibilities. In order to do that, good coordination and control are necessary Coordinating bodies are
crucial where they will provide a clear and strong strategic leadership role for the whole neighbourhood.
2. Participative Governance or Collaborative Responsibility slowly emerge as replacements for
adversarial municipal maintenance and control of public spaces and properties. Participation-by-Invitation
is, very often, replaced by Participation-by-No-Choice. Covid-19, political and economic protests, global
recession and surging unemployment – all of them push towards insurgent forms of collaboration in
public assets maintenance and monitoring. Governments and City Councils are failing to solve public
problems in the context of scarcity and austerity policies and the community residents should fill the gap.
The solution is proliferating the efforts and responsibility of maintaining public spaces – and
handling them to the community-orientated groupings.
3. The Tactical Urbanism or Guerrilla Gardening are not satisfactory solutions as well. They are done, very
often, in small scale. They are done with no common agreement on design, frequency and quality. They are
conducted and carried-out beyond the official city and/or community regular bodies control. There is no
permanent commitment. And, above all, these are TEMPORARY or RANDOM steps.
4. INTEGRA urges for digital and organizational solution that profoundly changes the basic routines, beliefs,
resource allocation and authority timetable in regard with public spaces/properties upkeep.
People/Residents and Urban Places influence each other by being part of the neighbourhood or city fabric.
More and more places in the cities should have, more significant "footprint" of the residents living
nearby, and associated, with these places, by meanings, memories and actions of improvement, upkeep
and conservation. If citizens become real partners of city improvement, refurbishment and beautification –
this is the best illustration to the expression that urban environments are being referred to as interfaces.
Giving mandate to citizens to monitor, to make an alert, to paint, to clean with a broom, to plant and to
water, to add signs, to work on a mural or to help children pass, safely, the crossroad – these all are an
ultimate recipe for public places to become: a meeting place, a co-working space, a weekly market, a
blooming place etc. All can be done, recorded, controlled and published by accessing digital, high-resolution,
in-detail platform.
5. Every citizen becomes more Responsible for: him/herself, his/her family, house, block, road, district,
his/her living/work/studying place and his/her community.
6. Citizen responsibility with INTEGRA is, often, summarized in three words: See, Click and Fix. All is
based on prompt messages and using mobiles. INTEGRA allows citizens to report emergency and
non-emergency issues, like: burnt-out streetlights, dead animals, graffiti, missed waste pickups, mowing
request, noise, parking violation, potholes, traffic signal/sign problems, vandalism, violence and water
leaks, to the appropriate city authority with short text and photo. The complaint message is shared with
nearby neighbours and arrives, immediately, to the responsible municipal staff inbox (not sitting closed in a
voice mailbox or an email inbox). The reporting citizen gets back an identifying complaint serial number
and the system keeps track of the open complaint until it is fixed or resolved. INTEGRA allows other
users (citizens, local road / district committee, municipal authorities) to comment on the problem or
illegal activity.
7. Citizens consider it one of their primary tasks to provide information and ideas. You and your family will
take, more, but still partial, responsibility, for your close surrounding: You inform the municipal authorities,
promptly, in real-time, about every problem around. The authorities MUST deal with your call. The call will
blink in their screens and smartphones until the problem will be resolved. You’ve created a formal and
agreed upon audit trail.
8. You, the citizen, take a small amount, but crucial, responsibility for 1-2 items near your house: a tree,
a small flower-bed, a lighting pole, a small court or garden, a bench. You’ve adopted an inanimate pet for
years. A challenge for your health and a good lesson for your next generation.
9. Citizens plant Trees and Plants. They take responsibility for their current maintenance. Citizens
donate or subsidize costs of planting new Trees and Plants.
10. The citizens’ personal menu gives them instant ability to record any service request or emergency
call from their computers or personal devices. On the same time, local
Municipality Employees
can
report directly the specific maintenance department with more technical and detailed data. It is dual
responsibility in reporting and in taking care. Citizen/
Staff
notice the problem, fill details in the online
request/call.
Municipal
Staff
and/or responsible citizen fix the problem in the field. The problem is
reported back, as fixed, to the computerized system. The reporting party can be notified of the repair with a
message, phone call or email.
11. The concept of Responsibility is embedded in INTEGRA screens. In each screen, the user finds
the name (and: telephone number, mail address, photo) of the person in charge of the topic or
application in the top right corner of the screen. Every INTEGRA master record includes details of the
responsible person.
