Plant Your Street! (geogame)
Location-based geogame by Alenka Poplin (Iowa State / now Cornell) where neighbourhood residents play tree-selection and tree-placement scenarios over their actual block. Part of a broader Geogames research agenda (Poplin 2012/2018/2025) including Climate Geogames for urban heritage sustainability. Validated through workshops in Ames, Iowa.
Designed for inter-block / inter-neighborhood comparison of tree canopy plans. Outputs feed into PPGIS layers so different streets/blocks can be compared on biodiversity, shade, species mix scores. Cities run multiple block-level sessions and rank outcomes.
Players within a block negotiate species and placement as a team (the workshop format is collaborative. Neighbors place trees on a shared map). The game is explicitly designed to build INTRA-block consensus before a planting day; the data is published back to the local urban-forestry office.
A live academic prototype literally about 'streets competing on tree canopy via collaborative play'. A perfect, under-mentioned BelongHub building-block. Maintained by a named researcher with multiple peer-reviewed papers (geogames typology 2025).
Others in the same family
Ciudad Saludable / Healthy Cities (Bupa)
Free 'Healthy Cities' app: register 6,000 daily steps, choose a city/commune to support. Bupa Foundation channels funds into local nature-restoration projects in each participating district. Chile 2025 funded 7 commune legacies: San Bernardo, La Florida, Coquimbo, Maipú, Renca, Viña del Mar, Huechuraba.
Cool Block / Cool City Challenge
Block leaders recruit 5-8 neighboring households into a 'Cool Block' that runs a 9-meeting, 5-month program across carbon, water, resilience, livability, and empowerment themes. 'Cool Neighborhood' = ~10 Cool Blocks in geographic proximity.
City Nature Challenge
Started 2016 as LA-vs-SF friendly competition; now an annual end-of-April 4-day bioblitz where cities compete on most observations, most species, most participants. Using iNaturalist. Run by California Academy of Sciences + Natural History Museum LA.
Stridekick / Big Team Challenge / Step Count Challenge
Paths for All / Walking Scotland's national 4-week team walking challenge. Teams of 5 (workplaces, community groups, council departments) compete on cumulative steps. Big Team Challenge and Stridekick are commercial backends used by councils to run city-vs-city or department-vs-department editions on virtual maps (London, Route 66, Great Wall etc.).
Las Fallas de Valencia (Casals Fallers competition)
~750 neighborhood 'casals fallers' (faller clubs). Covering ~25% of Valencia's population. Each commission and build a satirical sculptural monument (a 'falla') up to five stories tall in their own neighborhood. All fallas compete in juried categories (Seccion Especial down to local sections), plus a separate Ninot Indultat popular-vote contest decides which figure escapes burning on 19 March.
Cool Choices (Wisconsin team sustainability game)
Madison-based non-profit running a 4-6 week online sustainability game where employees of companies, school districts, and municipalities form teams. Players log daily 'cool choices' (carpool, line-dry laundry, unplug devices) which are translated into points on a public scoreboard. Originally a deck of physical cards at Miron Construction; now web/mobile. 9,471+ players, 334,201+ sustainable actions reported.