Effective urban dashboards for local public administration: taxonomy and recommendations

Urban dashboards (or city dashboards) have emerged as tools that are able to help both citizens and local policymakers understand the state of a city and act accordingly, to address service disruptions and risks, and seize opportunities. However, at present, urban dashboards remain evolving tools whose effectiveness for local public administration is still largely unknown. The research question supporting the present work addresses the effectiveness and usability of urban dashboards with respect to their various scopes, as well as which features are most important for their effectiveness. To study this topic, the research pro- poses an analysis framework to investigate the features and critical success factors for effective urban dashboards addressed to the local public management. A selection of 21 urban dashboards was analyzed through this framework, leading to a discussion of key insights and recommendations on how to define and implement a robust, effective, and useful urban dashboard for city governance.