Boston uses crowdsourcing to gather plaza ideas

On March 9, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh publicly put out a call to all residents to help brainstorm ideas to redesign City Hall Plaza.

The all-brick plaza consists of more than 200,000 square feet of open space, with estimated foot traffic of 20,000 to 30,000 people per day. The 4.5-acre site is commonly viewed, however, as underutilized and unwelcoming.

Walsh issued a “Request for Ideas” on the city’s website and took to Twitter to ask citizens to tweet comments and ideas to @marty_walsh and @notifyboston using the hashtag #CityHallPlaza.

Daniel Koh, the mayor’s chief of staff, said that the RFI is meant to elicit ideas of what people would want to see in the plaza, which will eventually lead to a more detailed, formal RFI in the
future.

As of March 25, the city had received 12 responses to the RFI and around 300 ideas submitted via Twitter, Koh said.

“Tweeted” ideas include public green space, a soccer field, and an outdoor food market.

The city is no stranger to crowdsourcing. Mayor Walsh has hosted four crowdsourcing competitions since taking office more than a year ago, ranging from asking citizens to come up with alternative ways to remove snow this winter to having a public space invitational, which led to 70 submissions and the funding of nine small-scale civic projects.

“We are always looking for ways to engage and include the public,” Koh said.

According to the RFI, the city is seeking urban planners, designers, architects, public-private partnerships and others willing to transform the unique public space into a hub for “cultural, civic, athletic and commercial activities.”

The city also held an informational meeting on March 25 in City Hall for citizens to share their ideas.

The information requested in the RFI is due by May 4.