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Abstract

New kinds of technology-mediated interactions are transforming the way people interact with local government. One of the key characteristics of these interactions is that they are based in the creation and consumption of data. In that vein, we have developed and deployed a smartphone application called Cycle Atlanta that enables cyclists to record their rides so that city planners can base infrastructure development decisions on up-to-date data showing where cyclists are moving through the City. After nearly three-years of use that has included over 1600 individual users, we have a rich repository of data that shows where cyclists travel and which begins to outline key characteristics of the city. The challenges these data practices raise are multifaceted and deeply rooted in the historic and socio-economic legacies of Atlanta. They are also emblematic of the shift toward new forms of democratic participation through the development and deployment of computing systems to augment and extend existing civic institutions, support public discourse, and re-envision the city. The Cycle Atlanta project offers a unique test bed to simultaneously understand the limits of current digital democratic and smart city initiatives and create alternatives that directly speak to those limits. We argue in this chapter that building up new practices of civic participation can engage concerned publics around a shared set of issues and develop participation as an expression of agency, of expertise, of tacit knowledge, and of individual and community identity.