A

PROJECT PROPOSAL
ON
KNN BASED CROWDSOURCING
TECHNIQUE FOR PUBLIC OPINION
ANALYSIS ON URBAN PLANNING
BY
ODEYEMI SAHEED OLUWATAYO
CSC/2017/1116
AND
OGUNDEJI OPEYEMI VICTORIA
CSC/2017/1120
UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF
OF
MR NGHARAMIKE ERICMOORE.

Table Of Contents.
 Background to the Study
 Statement of the problem
 Aim and Objectives of the study
 Significance of the study
 Literature review
 Methodology
 Conclusion
 References
 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Like all other disciplines, urban planning heavily depends on research to grow and evolve, failure
to which the discipline can lose relevance and become extinct in today’s fast-changing world.
This is in line with observations in the Frascati Manual which defines research and experimental
development as comprising of creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to
increase the stock of knowledge of man, culture and society; and the use of this stock of
knowledge to devise new applications (OECD, 2002). Like the manual, (Gulbrandsen & Kyvik,
2010) identified three major universal research methods applicable in both the physical and
social sciences. This paper will adopt as the key research methods in urban planning namely:
1) Basic research;
2) Applied research; and
3) Experimental development.
Other than the three methods listed above, (Parnell & Piertese, 2015) identified pure research,
applied research, embedded research, city labs, professional networks, cityscapes and exhibitions
as important modes for generating urban planning-related new knowledge. This section of the
paper will discuss the first three in detail with embedded techniques and relevant examples, and
then proceed to provide a synopsis of the rest which the readers can research more on.
Public opinion, often known as political opinion, is a measure of how the general public feels
about a certain issue, political party, or individual politician. The aggregate of individual ideas,
attitudes, or beliefs held by the adult population is known as public opinion. This can also refer
to a society's collective opinion on a particular topic or voting intentions.
Crowdsourcing is a new way of obtaining data, promoting innovation, and allowing collaborative
decision-making. To accomplish scientific and democratic decision-making, more public
participation and broader group participation are required in urban planning. (Pinchao et al.2019)

Crowdsourcing is the collective engagement of people to contribute to a common goal. It has

many forms – crowd funding, co-creation, collaboration, etc. – and can be applied in various

industries. It is utilized especially for tasks that are inherently easier for humans than for
computers. Technically, crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving model, where the

problem is delegated to a large group of unknown people, the crowd.

Utilizing crowdsourcing in urban planning of a used case as Ekiti state is an innovative concept

which will help to achieve a Mega city . According to the National Bureau of Statistics as at the

year 2020, Lagos state has 18.9 million internet subscribers. This plays a major role as one of the

major strength of crowdsourcing is a high population of people connected to the internet.

The growth of technologies such as Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and
Web 2.0 technology has resulted in a global data revolution (Kitchin 2014, p. 26).
Crowdsourced data has piqued the curiosity of many professions as a new sort of big data (Gray
et al. 2015; Garcia-Molina et al. 2016). Initially, it is the current wave of ICTs, such as digital
devices, mobile phones, and the Internet of Things, which have permeated almost every aspect of
daily life, including work, residency, commuting, communication, consumption, leisure, travel,
and so on, and have been captured with explicit or implicit content at unprecedented spatial and
temporal resolutions (Kitchin 2014, p. xv). The second is the rise of Web 2.0 technology, which
encourages internet users to create and participate with online content rather than simply
consume it (Batty 2012). This enables internet users to produce, change, and supply content to
websites, resulting in an increase in the production of user-generated content related to public
activities. The widespread adoption of these technologies has surely resulted in a flood of
crowdsourced data that is closely linked to people's daily activities (Kitchin 2014, p. 80). As a
result, crowdsourced data has been employed in a wide corpus of research, and it has quickly
become a valuable source of data-driven analysis in geography and urban studies (Miller and
Goodchild 2015). (Haifeng Niu and Elisabete A. Silva 2019)

From a plethora of approaches, two key technologies supporting crowdsourced data have
evolved, concentrated around two main themes: device/platform-captured data and user/system-
interaction data.

Urban crowdsourcing is a new type of open innovation aimed at the development of smart cities.
Because of the diversity of partners in urban planning, understanding the type of knowledge
gained from each stakeholder at each stage of the crowdsourcing process is critical for effective
collaborations and the activation of innovative knowledge flows. This study investigates
complex multi-stakeholder ecosystems using a qualitative approach with experts from the
Casablanca Smart City project. This study, in particular, identifies and investigates the role of
external stakeholders at each stage of the innovation process, as well as the resulting dynamic
knowledge flows that aid in the process of urban crowdsourcing in the development of smart city
solutions. Findings identify three primary stakeholders (citizens, public authorities, and private
and public firms) and three secondary stakeholders, depending on the complexity of the
innovation project (NGOs, universities, consulting companies). The results show where they
intervene in the four stages of urban crowdsourcing. Furthermore, the findings point to a
dynamic learning environment with two knowledge flows ("learning with" and "learning from"
stakeholders).

Crowdsourcing platforms have recently been used to solve problems in urban planning by
enlisting crowds of citizens to perform tasks. The success of this approach, however, is directly
related to how work is managed. Through a systematic literature review, the current study aims
to provide a broad characterization of work management in crowdsourcing approaches applied to
urban planning. More specifically, we intend to look into aspects of work quality.

K-nearest neighbors (KNN) algorithm is a type of supervised machine learning algorithm which
can be used for both classification as well as regression predictive problems. However, it is
mainly used for classification predictive problems in industry. Lazy learning algorithm and
Non-parametric learning algorithm best define KNN algorithm as it uses ‘feature similarity’ to
predict the values of new datapoints which further means that the new datapoint will be assigned
a value based on how closely it matches the points in the training or trained set.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

There are many factors that lead to the investigation or study of this system, developing country

in time of infrastructures or state to become a Mage city has been a great issue that need to be

resolved in every state to bring about developing the country and also increased its economy.

Some of the problems that motivate the research to study of this system include:

1. To know the citizens needs and wants

 2. Sharing of ideas to make the architecture of the urban planning more easier

3. To determine the necessary needs of a particular geographical area

4. To allocate resources accordingly, in order to encourage and satisfy the citizens

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVE

1.3.1 AIM

The aim of this project is to design and develop a mobile application that serves as a platform to

provide public opinion for information on urban planning in Ekiti state using KNN algorithm to

predict the accurate crowdsourced data in Ekiti state using the state’s educational sector as case

study.

1.3.2 OBJECTIVE

The specific objectives of this study are to:

1. Develop a mobile application

2. Provide public opinions, views and ideas on educational issues, as well as the suggested

solutions

3. Analyze and predict the accurate solutions that the educational sector requires from the

public opinion gathered in Ekiti State educational sector, using KNN algorithm.

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The major benefits of the proposed system are:

1. It provides public opinions, views, ideas and aggregates of information on urban

planning.

2. It helps to allocate resources accordingly to encourage and satisfy the citizens.

3. It helps to predict the accurate needs and wants of the citizens.

 4. It can serve as an information system for the Urban Planning Agencies in Ekiti state.

5. It will improve the productivity of the architecture and the economic growth of the state

by turning it to mega city.

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study focuses on using KNN based crowdsourcing technique to analyze public opinion in

educational sector, mainly to predict people’s view about school structuring and management.

This is implemented by developing a mobile application which serves as a platform for people to

access, share ideas and information from different geographical areas. This system also uses an

algorithm to analyze the received data to predict the accurate public opinion for information on

urban planning in Ekiti state. The implementation of this project is limited to Ekiti state.

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 . Strategic urban development planning.

Gordon (2013) defines strategic development planning as a systematic process by which a

community anticipates and plans for its future. The main outcome of the strategic planning
process is the strategic development plan, being defined as a plan that identifies critical
priorities and outcomes to be achieved by the municipality over a longer term. The strategic
plan is, therefore, a basic conceptual and development document created by an urban or
municipal authority based on the current state of public and private activities, of demographic,
economic, social, cultural and environmental nature within the city. The main purpose of the
strategic development plan is the organization of development on the basis of balancing
individual interests so that the city thrives as a whole, providing a certain orientation for
business entities in setting their longer term business plans.

The plan must be both visionary and strategic. It outlines goals and objectives for the future
and is the principal guide directing land use policy and decision-making. It defines the policies,
programs and specific actions necessary to attain these objectives, prepares the city for growth,
and provides a reliable basis for public and private investment.

The first step when building a solid plan is to open the lines of communication. It includes the
staff, managers and directors, city council, and last but not least, the citizens. The city
managers should engage and collaborate with the inhabitants as much as possible to know that
the plan focuses on the right initiatives. According to Wamsler (2016), improving the city-
citizen collaboration is an important step in fostering transformative adaptation. One possible
way to provide an innovative planning solution that facilitates the communication and
collaboration with citizens is the implementation of crowdsourcing.

2.2 . Crowdsourcing.

The term crowdsourcing was first coined by Howe ( 2006) as the act of a company or institution
taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and
generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. It has many definitions but can be
unified by the idea of an open call for anyone to participate in an online task (Estelles-Arolas &
Gonzalez-Ladron-De-Guevara, 2012;Brabham, 2013) by contributing information, knowledge or
skills. In the public participation context, it is stated that crowdsourcing “involves an
organization-user relationship whereby an organization executes a top-down, managed process
that seeks the bottom-up, open, creative input of users in an online community”, and it is this
management that makes it “productive and full of potential to do good” (Brabham, 2013).

Despite the phenomenon of crowdsourcing it was primarily developed in the field of business,
however as it is emerging, the applications of crowdsourcing for various activities are expanding
(Hossain & Kauranen, 2015). The first author who demonstrated that crowdsourcing can be
effectively used in public sector as a particular form of citizen participation in the public policy
processes was Brabham (2009). According to him, crowdsourcing happens when:

(1) an organization has a task to perform,

(2) an online community voluntarily perform the task, and

(3) the result is a mutual benefit for the organization and the online community.

Schenk & Guittard (2011) defined three different components in every crowdsourcing
initiative, namely:

(1) An organization which benefits, directly or indirectly from the crowd’s wisdom,

(2) Individuals who form the crowd and are responsible for generating the content, and

(3) Crowdsourcing enablers who serve as an intermediary platform, building the link between
these two. The organization component in this context is urban government, the crowd
component refers to citizens as a part of online community, and the platform is the technology
which plays a vital role as a facilitator (Zhao & Zhu, 2014), (Aitamurto, Landemore, &
Saldivar Galli, 2017).

2.3. Crowdsourcing for strategic urban development planning

To make appropriate decisions that reflect the overall wishes and needs of population, it makes
sense to refer to citizens (Garcia, Vivacqua, & Tavares, 2011). That is why many cities actively
seek new methods to engage their population as a partner in the urban planning processes (Rowe
& Frewer, 2000).

The citizen participation has been facilitated and made easier through a widespread and easy
access to technologies such as the Internet, mobile phones and other communication devices
enabling public officials to harness the collective intelligence of the crowd in ways face-to-face
planning meetings cannot (Shirky, 2008; Sowmya & Pyarali, 2014). Crowdsourcing, in this way,
proved itself to be an appropriate model for enabling the citizen participation process in public
planning projects (Brabham, 2009) as it creates opportunities to improve popular participation in
the public sector (Layne & Lee, 2001), as well as increases the population’s expectations
regarding public services’ reach.

Crowdsourcing is particularly suitable for urban planning because it voluntarily brings together a
large group of people to address common issues that affect them. As stated by Brabham (2009),
crowdsourcing works successfully for local purposes through localized knowledge and acquired.

METHODOLOGY

The methodology to be used for this project is Crowdsourcing

What is Crowdsourcing?
 Crowdsourcing is a new way of obtaining data, promoting innovation, and allowing
collaborative decision-making. To accomplish scientific and democratic decision-making,
more public participation and broader group participation are required in urban planning.
(Pinchao et al.2019).
 Crowdsourcing as one of the major techniques for open innovation involves handing out a
challenge or a problem to a sizeable and diverse group of people, hoping to arrive at novel
solutions more robust than those found within an agency or organization (Brabham, 2009;
Howe, 2006)
Dataset to be Used?
The dataset to consider for this study will be the Crowdsourced data.
Algorithm to be Used?
 The Algorithm to be used is KNN Algorithm.
 KNN Algorithm belongs to the family of supervised learning Algorithm.
 It is a instance-based learning, lazy learning or non-parametric learning that uses ‘feature
similarity’ to predict the values of new datapoints which further means that the new datapoint
will be assigned a value based on how closely it matches the points in the training or trained set.
 CONCLUSION

 The Success of this project will help reduce congestion of a geographical area.

 Hereby enhancing a liveable community.

 Hence stabilizing the economy of the state thereby having a effect on the Nation at large.
 REFERENCES

 Gordon(2013): Strategic urban development planning.

 Garcia et al(2011): Crowdsourcing for strategic urban development planning.

 Ismaila Rimi Abubakar(2019):Applications of Crowdsourcing in Sustainable Urban

Development Planning in Developing Countries.