Urbanisation is a major change that is taking place globally. The urban global tipping point was reached in 2007 when over half of the world’s population was living in urban areas; around 3.3 billion people. It is estimated that a further 500 million people will be urbanised in the next five years and projections indicate that the percentage of the world’s population urbanised by 2030 will be 60%. This rush to the cities, caused in part by the attraction of opportunities for wealth generation, has generated the phenomenon of ’megacities’ that have a population of over 10 million. There are currently 19 megacities and there are expected to be around 27 by 2020. Over half this growth will be in Asia; the world’s economic geography is now shifting to Asia.

Our traditional approaches to capturing and managing geospatial information cannot support the needs of city managers operating within these highly dynamic environments. This incredibly rapid growth of megacities requires a new set of tools and techniques to monitor growth and change across the megacity. A new generation of citizen activated sensors in the urban environment is creating opportunities for collecting and managing a wide range of urban information that can be used to manage our cities more effectively. A new people-centric sensing paradigm for urban sensing at very large scale is emerging that engages citizens in shaping their cities.

This paper explores the role of ‘urban sensing’ that uses mobile phones, ubiquitous, sensor technologies that have entered your back pocket and purse, GIS related technologies, Web 2.0, Mobile (M)-government services