Citizens worldwide increasingly take the lead in tackling urgent challenges in their neighborhoods. This paradigm shift follows the government’s monopoly on service provision and, in more recent years, the domination of market forces. To achieve sustainable results citizens needs methods, data and structural financing. The challenge is to make every voice count while taking on entrenched urban governance systems & processes designed for a different time. That starts and ends with community building and local ownership of spaces. Underlying this is data and digital tools.