Article Politics and Space Learning from community indicators movements: towards a citizen-powered urban data revolution Sara Moreno Pires University of Aveiro, Portugal Liam Magee Western Sydney University, Australia Meg Holden Simon Fraser University, Canada Abstract This paper explores current debates, data products and key implications of what has been called the urban data revolution, which has emerged to international prominence in recent years. We engage with critical appraisals of the new urban data revolution, and discuss what they can learn from both the successes and the failures of the earlier wave of data enthusiasm, the community indicators movement. Second, we analyse the different challenges, dangers and implications of the urban data revolution that both complicate and can sustain a citizen-centred vision of good city governance. We further consider the potential for deliberation and participation in the use of data to define and measure urban progress and success. In the face of a mounting volume and velocity of urban data, these lessons nonetheless pose democratic challenges to the urban data revolution today. Keywords Big data, community indicators, standardization, smart city, sustainability indicators Introduction: The urban data revolution Cloud-based computing, urban sensors, ‘‘digital footprints’’, open source software, real-time dashboards, crowd-sourced data and social network ‘‘likes’’ and ‘‘recommends’’ are the exemplary symbolic registers of an emergent era of Big Data. Though these data circulate Corresponding author: Sara Moreno Pires, Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences, GOVCOPP-Research Centre on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies, University of Aveiro, Campus de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal. Email: sarapires@ua.pt Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 0(0) 1–20 ! The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/2399654417691512 journals.sagepub.com/home/epc