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Local civic tech

Civic Tech at Neighborhood Scale

Civic tech doesn't have to be built for your neighborhood to work in your neighborhood. Ushahidi was built for crisis mapping in Kenya; it also makes a lovely map of the third places on your block. The pattern repeats across a decade of open-source civic software: the platforms are global, the deployments that matter are local — and small. What travels isn't the app, it's the remix: platforms (open source, self-hostable), patterns (adopt-a-thing, signs on fences), and stories of what real blocks did.

This guide was researched through the Civic Tech Field Guide's directory of thousands of projects — including its graveyard, which teaches as much as the survivors do. The tools below are all open source with real deployments behind them; each carries a one-line neighborhood remix idea, and each can be planned and built in Relational Builder. The design lessons come first, because the graveyard is full of tools that skipped them.

Start with the thesis — and the graveyard

Four frameworks before any tool: why remixing beats adopting, what the dead platforms teach, the six design lessons, and the shadow side to design against.

See your place together

Maps and shared memory: tools for a neighborhood to see itself — its places, stories, and streets — on its own terms.

Decide together

Participation platforms scale down surprisingly well: a block deciding how to spend $500 deserves ballot design as good as a city's.

Share, care, and coordinate

The mutual-aid stack: food, stuff, services, events — coordination tools that treat neighbors as participants, not tickets.

Proof it works: stories from real blocks

What actually happened when neighborhoods picked up these patterns — including the ones that started as a spreadsheet and a phone number.

Build yours

Six starting points, ready to open in Relational Builder — describe your block and adapt from there.

Out in the world Which would you remix for your neighborhood first?
Notes from visitors

What tech does your neighborhood actually use — and what did it stop using? Leave a note: a remix idea, a deployment story, a tool we should know about. Notes are public and signed with the name you give.

No notes yet — the wall is fresh paint. Leave the first one.

Keep going: Building Power with Your Neighbors · Civic Media for Your Neighborhood · Stories from the field