If you grew up in Greece, you probably remember how it went when something needed fixing. A broken streetlight, a pothole that could swallow a wheel, a park bench falling apart. You either walked into City Hall, called a cousin who knew someone, or crossed your fingers and waited. That was it.
Now, in more than 110 towns and cities in Greece, and even in places like Parma in Italy, Burgas in Bulgaria, Sarajevo in Bosnia, the Marche Region, Tuscany, and Barcelona, you can sort it out with a few taps on your phone.
That is because of City On, a smart city platform that runs on Crowdapps, Crowdpolicy’s cloud suite of 19 integrated applications for municipalities. Crowdpolicy has been around since 2012, founded by Michael Psallidas and George Karamanolis, two people who helped shape Greece’s first open government and transparency projects. Back then, they were building national systems. Today, their focus is closer to home, giving people in every neighborhood a way to connect directly with their municipality.
They understand how things work in Greece. If you have ever heard your aunt say, “I know someone at the Δήμος (Municipality) who can fix that,” you will understand why City On feels different. The app is that someone. You open it, report what is wrong, and follow what happens next.
It does more than take complaints. You can track requests, see a live map of public works, ask the AI assistant about anything from recycling points to bus schedules, and take part in surveys about city projects. You can share ideas and vote on which ones should come first. Some towns even use it to highlight offers from local businesses or guide visitors to places worth seeing.
In Mytilene, the results are clear. More than 20,000 residents are registered. In the first half of 2025, they sent in 1,582 requests. Forty-two percent were about cleaning and recycling, twenty-three percent about lighting, seven percent about roads, and five percent about green spaces. By mid-year, almost half were completed, a little more than a third were being worked on, and the rest were still pending. Anyone can open the app and see those numbers.
The same system that works in an island town is now running in major European cities. Each municipality can adapt it to its own priorities. Some focus on roads and cleanliness, others on public participation or supporting local business. The technology is flexible enough to fit all of them.
For Crowdpolicy, technology is only half the story. They see City On as a way to make local government more open and accountable. Publishing live statistics on service requests is not something most municipalities do, but here it is built in. That openness builds trust.
For those of us here in Philadelphia with family back in Greece, it is more than a civic tool. Picture this. You are on a video call with your uncle in the village. He shows you a deep pothole right outside his house. You walk him through the app, he submits the request, and a few weeks later, you both check in and see “Completed.” You can hear the pride in his voice, and you feel a little of it too. It is not just about a pothole. It is about being part of your hometown’s life, even when you are thousands of miles away. Isn’t that great?