Citizen insights and consumer insights are two different galaxies
For a long time I was convinced that building projects could be more successful if the collective opinion of citizens was taken into account. Good surveys that generate isights - and everything will be tip-top.
But these issues are more complicated than in business. For some public goods there is no obvious customer. Some public goods mean change in the urban environment and only become goods in the long term. There will always be people for and against, like in politics. But it does not mean that one of those groups is right.
It becomes more clear for me that there is no one truth in the public domain. Citizens' opinions is not the best source of information. Data analytics might suite for evaluating the quality and efficiency of public services, for assessing marketing campaigns, website monitoring, etc. It does not suit for change projects. Pointless inertia of NIMBYs will hold back the development and growth. City planning does not serve individual needs, it creates a product for different (conflicting) target groups with different needs. In this case, asking for individualistic opinions makes little sense.
However, surveying citizens (in a non-boring way) might help the city understand what are the different segments living in a certain area or city as a whole, and understand their needs better. Construction and renovation projects would then be able to target themselves differently towards different stakeholder groups.
Anyways, market research and data science play a very different role in the public sector, compared to the purposes of for-profit companies.











