Simply put, crowdsourcing is the use of services provided by a willing and participating audience — they’re not your employees, nor are they bound to you by an agreement. And to boot, their currency isn’t even direct monetary compensation, but rather acknowledgment, props, and self fulfillment.

You’ve already seen some of their products: Linux, Wikipedia, js code libraries (anything open-source for that matter), nonprofit and not just for profit organizations, even things as simple as information from discussion boards, education from user groups, and innovation from coworking events.

So how does this relate to New Urbanism? Well, crowdsourcing is especially potent when there’s a healthy and open culture of conversation and relationship. While the internet helps accomplish this on a virtual level, New Urbanism aids on a physical/”real life” level.

And of course, this makes sense. We all know that the most innovative cities have many planning properties that resonates with and inspires New Urbanism.

Ironically, I discovered the term from http://www.cooltownstudios.com while searching for WIFI hotspots to cowork from in Santa Monica, which inspired me to create this artifact of user generated content called a blog post. =)