1st Long Beach, Calif.
This Southern California port city of roughly 450,000 reprises last year’s first place win with a continued focus on data and analytics. One of its biggest challenges continues to be homelessness, and Technology and Innovation Department (TID) staffers volunteered and supported the technology behind this year’s point-in-time count of the unhoused.
TID is also using tech to improve hiring, another top city priority. Officials worked with three departments to pilot the LinkedIn Talent suite of AI tools and services and saw a marked increase in awareness and engagement around jobs, as well as growth for the city’s own LinkedIn page. Its use will continue beyond the pilot.
The department stood up the Long Beach Collaboratory (LB Co-Lab) to engage residents in prototyping civic technology infrastructure in four neighborhoods. Community members helped identify neighborhood challenges, guide RFPs and choose technology proposals — then worked on implementation. The initiative gave residents a voice in procurement to solve issues on their blocks.
In more evidence of the city’s focus on resident engagement, a Civic User Research practice TID deployed assesses usability and effectiveness of city digital services. Leaders are also taking steps to ensure residents’ privacy, launching an improved Digital Rights Platform in March explaining how more than 20 smart city technologies collect and use data. Long Beach partners with California State University to offer interactive “data walks,” taking residents to educational signage. In April, the city launched its Data Privacy Champions Workgroup to connect and inform staffers on the city’s data privacy policy.
Leaders confronted a cybersecurity incident last year by taking most of the city network, systems and Internet connections offline as a precaution. In response, staffers installed sophisticated endpoint detection and response monitoring, stood up an around-the-clock Security Operations Center solution, and continue to educate city employees on phishing — resulting in a 97 percent course completion rate in 2023.
2nd Chandler, Ariz.
It was a year of investment and strategic thinking for Chandler, Ariz., given challenges that ranged from cyber threats to staffing shortages to supply chain disruptions. The city invested in IT in various ways: cybersecurity controls, secured network technology, infrastructure for Wi-Fi 6, cloud computing and data management, as well as by passing its largest technology projects budget to date for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. It also doubled its cybersecurity team, hired four interns from the local community college, refined the automated process for reporting and analyzing phishing threats, and standardized multifactor authentication enterprise-wide. At one point, city personnel caught a bad actor using a third-party payment processor to charge fees under $1, but they were able to quickly secure their environment and contact the vendor to terminate the source of the fraud.
Other projects were about reaching people. To make progress on the digital divide, the city studied locations and reasons for gaps in coverage, then partnered with the Institute for Digital Inclusion and Acceleration, the local school district and a local nonprofit to set up and staff a community technology center, where underserved people can get free access to devices and the Internet. For in-person services at more than 10 departments and 20 divisions throughout the city, staff piloted real-time language translation technology that facilitated more than 560 face-to-face conversations with residents regardless of language or disability. The city also started working with the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative to plan a 311 customer service center, launched a self-service portal for residents to retrieve archived records, and used a six-week digital campaign to gather input on the 2024-2025 budget that yielded 1,135 responses. Chandler’s engagement efforts are working: Last year saw a 12 percent increase in visitors to its website and a 5 percent increase in online utility payments.
3rd Virginia Beach, Va.
Virginia Beach’s commitment to creating an inclusive and accessible digital service experience for its constituents helped secure third place in this year’s Digital Cities Survey. To see these efforts through, the city established a web accessibility coordinator position. This role is responsible for ensuring all digital content on city websites meets a set of accessibility guidelines and is ADA compliant. This makes it easier for users with disabilities to access city resources and improves the user experience overall.
Additionally, the city also combined its open data portal with its GIS data portal to simplify the user experience. This one-stop portal grants users access to all the city’s open data in one place. The new open data portal, which is also accessible for people with disabilities, includes an advanced search functionality, making it easier for users to find what they need.
The city is also helping keep its residents safe by leveraging AI technology. After completing a successful pilot project, Virginia Beach is using AI to help emergency dispatchers manage calls. A virtual assistant, powered by AI, provides answers to a handful of requests when calls are made to the city’s non-emergency line. With the help of AI, callers can get quick responses when they need to file a police report, communicate with animal control and more. The program has processed over 12,500 calls since its inception.
In cybersecurity, the city chose identity management as its main strategy for mitigating cyber threats and phishing scams. To that end, the city implemented Fast Identity Online 2 (FIDO2) authentication mechanisms. FIDO2’s unique multifactor authentication paired with its single sign-on capability allows the city to begin building the foundations for password-free authentication implementation in the future.
4th Wichita, Kan.
Equity and security stand out as two of the big areas of focus for public-sector technology leaders in Wichita, the most populous city in Kansas. For starters, the city hosted a digital equity event for the community in March, with feedback and discussion coming from all sectors, including private business, health care and nonprofits. A digital equity working group involves various government departments, including IT, the library, parks and recreation, communications, housing, community services and human resources.
The city also installed three outdoor library benches in low-income areas where residents can access free Wi-Fi as well as the library system via interfaces on those benches. The city website, meanwhile, has won local praise for accessibility for people with disabilities.
Wichita’s technology staff also works with the state of Kansas and county IT professionals on “whole-of-state” cybersecurity — a larger trend among public agencies wherein smaller operations get technical help, guidance and access to contracts from larger operations with more expertise and resources. Wichita takes part in data sharing and other works that revolve around brainstorming, security and connectivity. Finally, Wichita also has streamlined its digital services down to what officials call a few unified offerings. The goal? Creating a cohesive digital experience for constituents.
5th Durham, N.C.
A new more comprehensive city website, which includes digital inclusion resources, is designed to function as “central hub of information” to close the digital divide in Durham, N.C., which finished in fifth place in its population category this year. An updated website governance policy will help to refine training and support for website editors in the city’s various departments, bringing consistency to the online experience residents and others have with the city. Durham tracks various metrics on user behavior to measure how effectively it’s communicating with constituents. Similar tools track engagement on social media platforms.
The city is delving into artificial intelligence to add to its capabilities in many areas. The Technology Solutions Project Management Office implemented AI-supported software known as Cortico, which is used during resident conversations on issues and concerns within the community. The software is human-led but uses AI to organize major topics and conduct sentiment analysis. Meanwhile, the Technology Solutions Department is using an AI-powered threat detection and prevention software to scan city-issued devices. Also on deck is a pilot of an AI-powered chatbot for the Durham One Call program and an open-source AI intelligence solution that the Durham Police Department will use to improve public safety and increase the effectiveness of the Criminal Investigations Division.
To enhance the resilience of its IT infrastructure, the city consolidated the Durham Emergency Communications Center (DECC) data center into the police department data center, which also involved moving the backup DECC data center into City Hall.
6th Gilbert, Ariz.
Gilbert, Ariz., lives up to its town motto, “City of the Future,” through a multifaceted IT agenda that moved it up several spots in this year’s survey. An early believer in the transformative potential of AI, Gilbert appointed a chief AI strategy and transformation officer in late 2023. Since then, the city has created policies and guidelines around the technology, held numerous trainings and workshops, and launched several tools for the city’s use.
As many cities strive to do, Gilbert meets its residents — with a median age of 34 — where they are, and where they are is on social media. The Office of Digital Government, which includes staff embedded in certain city departments, runs 25 social media channels. They’ve found particular success of late with Instagram Reels. In the last fiscal year, Gilbert has racked up an average of 40,000 views per Reel.
There is a full data agenda in Gilbert, where there are more than 200 data sources behind dynamic dashboards that bring performance data to life for decision-makers. They continue to prioritize this work, establishing and refining data policies and governance; evaluating supporting technology; and growing data literacy within the organization.
Turning to cybersecurity, Gilbert IT has consolidated its cybersecurity tech stack, reducing complexity while increasing capabilities. Part of the city’s cloud strategy includes an investment in “backup as a service,” a purchase that includes additional safeguards against ransomware. This is one of many moves toward the cloud, helping modernize infrastructure while cutting down on technical debt.
7th Riverside, Calif.
Riverside, Calif., made major improvements this year to update aging infrastructure, increase access to digital services, improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Riverside’s GIS system was over 22 years old when the city invested in a new system, Esri’s ArcGIS. The new system has helped the city’s GIS team map data from 311 Call Center reports on debris and encampments, as well as affordable housing locations, responding to the 70 percent of Riverside residents that indicated the city’s previous approach was insufficient.
The city has also updated its network infrastructure and data centers, consolidating data centers and introducing a fiber ring, which ensures city infrastructure can withstand outages and operate at a high capacity. To improve digital access for residents, the city forged a partnership with telecom company SiFi Networks Riverside. SiFi has invested more than $300 million in the design, construction and maintenance of a fiber-optic system to bring Internet service to every residence and business in the city, including subsidized services for low-income households.
In addition to updating its behind-the-scenes systems, Riverside redesigned its website and added online, automated services for paying bills and applying for permits. The new, more user-friendly city website houses these services.
Riverside has leaned into automation to help address challenges in many areas. In addition to online services, the city has automated some repetitive tasks in the Finance department. In a partnership with Ohmio, the city has deployed a pilot with three autonomous, electric shuttles, which offer free rides to the public. Though the shuttles are autonomous, each will have a safety operator to assist passengers and take over driving if needed.
8th Oakland, Calif.
Oakland is working to bridge the digital divide by prioritizing broadband expansion. In July 2024, the city received $15 million from the California Public Utilities Commission to build a citywide fiber-optic network. The network will connect various city buildings and 27 affordable housing locations. Other projects include a free Internet initiative through 2027 for residents in public housing, and a $1 million investment in a Student Connectivity Fund for Oakland Unified School District.
In the area of data governance, Oakland uses an enterprise GIS with the support of the IT department. The city uses GIS to identify key areas that need improvements in racial equity. Further, the GIS team is creating an app and dashboard to support the homeless encampment management team. After completion, these will simplify coordination with other city agencies involved in managing encampments. The city’s IT department also uses Power BI to manage databases involved with reporting for public safety, transportation, city projects and more. Open Oakland, the city’s open data portal, provides public data sets for crime data and 311 requests.
The Oakland IT department made major improvements to the city’s cybersecurity posture after a ransomware attack targeted city systems in February 2023. After fully recovering from the incident, the city is now better equipped to handle future threats with new systems and policies in place. Additional layers of security like multifactor authentication and CrowdStrike Complete are among the safeguards the IT department implemented across agencies.
The city created an artificial intelligence working group to identify new AI use cases and manage existing AI use cases. The group created ethical use case guidelines to ensure AI is non-discriminatory. The AI working group makes recommendations and works with other local governments on the technology.
9th Irvine, Calif.
While Irvine, Calif., faces funding constraints and staff shortages, the city has leaned into innovative tools within its budget to create in-house solutions that drive digital transformation.
In the last year, the city transitioned to digital business cards. The new in-house solution uses Entra ID data to generate a digital business card that includes the person’s name with a QR code, allowing for easy updates when there are changes in job titles or department names.
One of the city’s latest innovations is called “The Receptionist,” a cloud-based digital guest management system that leverages data from email calendar invites. The system compiles a list of expected visitors, and when guests arrive, they are greeted with a self-service kiosk where they have their photo taken and guest badge printed. Meanwhile, a notification is sent in Microsoft Teams to their point of contact, reducing the workload of the front desk staff and strengthening security.
Irvine also launched an in-house chatbot through a collaboration with the University of California, Irvine’s information computer science master’s degree students. Students developed the bot over a six-month period. The tool can access internal documents stored on SharePoint and respond to staff queries. While the bot is currently handling test data, the plan is for it to be able to access live data in the future.
