Nine California cities were among the top winners in the Center for Digital Government’s* 2019 Digital Cities Survey.
Now in its 19th year, the annual survey recognizes cities using technology to tackle social challenges, enhance services, strengthen cybersecurity and more.
“Congratulations to this year’s Digital Cities winners, who are working to make their communities more secure, user-friendly, efficient and resilient,” said Teri Takai, executive director for CDG. “Their efforts are making technology a driver of better, smarter, more responsive government.”
“The top Digital Cities this year are taking the IT department far beyond the role of service provider,” said Phil Bertolini, co-director of CDG. “They’re exploring creative ways to leverage their technology investments and redefining the role of the public-sector technology leader at the city level.”
The survey honors cities in five population classifications: 500,000 or more; 250,000 to 499,999; 125,000 to 249,999; 75,000 to 124,999; and fewer than 75,000. Within those categories, nine California cities placed in the top 10. (Full results are available at Government Technology, Techwire's sister publication.)
Following are the state’s results:
Population 500,000 and up
San Diego: 1st Place
Successfully marrying legacy and modern applications is a challenge many cities and even states struggle with, but by building on its IT successes over the years, it’s something San Diego has decided to undertake.
City leaders christened the Digital Strategy Division (DSD) in 2019. DSD is a group charged with standardizing applications so that an improved user experience can be delivered to the city’s residents. CIO Jonathan Behnke said DSD is helping his team with everything from cybersecurity to re-evaluating the application portfolios of each city department.
“As we modernize city systems, an improved user experience is a priority for us and really drives user adoption, provides ease in training and helps us make 11,500 employees more efficient in what they do,” Behnke said. “If you save 11,500 people a minute and a half a day, it adds up pretty quickly over time.”
It’s an under-the-hood tune-up that will provide a concrete plan for agencies to increase productivity and allow them to spend more time on more meaningful work.
DSD also serves as a liaison between the various city departments and IT, he said. As an agency develops a concept and goes through the steps to build it out, DSD is there to help the staff overcome potential barriers.
“They’re a great sounding board for us as we’re considering changes in delivering road maps to city departments,” said Behnke, who was featured in Techwire in 2017. “It’s a quick feedback loop for us to make adjustments or changes to improve the user experience.”
In response to the mayor’s pledge to repave 1,000 miles of streets by 2020, San Diego IT decided to distill 30 systems into a single enterprise asset management system, creating an improved capability to monitor and collaborate on capital improvement projects, Behnke said.
All these improvements come together in a resident’s ability to use the city’s 311 app, Get it Done, to report a pothole, follow the status of the repair via the San Diego open data portal, and facilitate potential piggybacking on the repair to result in a repaved and upgraded street.
“San Diego has developed a culture of innovation and really taken a data-driven approach to its services,” Behnke said. “All of those things culminated in a lot of successful projects in innovation in the past year.”
San Jose: 2nd Place
Partnerships, performance and pilots were among the strategies that catapulted the so-called “capital of Silicon Valley” and the state’s third most populous city from a sixth-place tie last year to second place. San Jose has set itself the goal of becoming North America’s most innovative city by 2020. It also lays claim to being America’s leanest big city, with 6,800 employees serving just over 1 million people.
One way this happens is through public-private partnerships. San Jose has contracted with AT&T, Verizon and Mobilitie to expand small cell sites and broadband reach — monetizing the carriers’ high-volume deployments by committing them to fund digital equity. In February, the city announced the San Jose Digital Inclusion Fund, which will marshal an estimated $24.1 million in revenue over 10 years from small-cell and fiber contracts to bridge its digital divide.
Other partnerships include extending FirstNet to all city first responders; deploying free Wi-Fi in 14 more city parks; working with Santa Clara County and the city/county of San Francisco on cybersecurity; and, through Terragraph, a partnership with Facebook Connectivity Lab, replacing the city’s legacy community Wi-Fi network during this year and next.
The city began adopting Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) in 2017 and 2018 to track projects and transformations; and will do so more broadly in 2019 and 2020. The OKRs are connected to the City Manager’s Enterprise Priorities for enhanced monitoring of progress and needs.
Among other engagements, the German auto firms Daimler and Bosch have committed to piloting an automated ride-hailing service in the city this year. San Jose won an American Planning Association Smart City Merit Award in April for working with startup UrbanLogiq to improve traffic flow with data-driven decision-making. The city also offered the use of cybersecurity resources to other municipalities, through an ongoing RFP, and four of its Bay Area neighbors have accepted.
Los Angeles: 4th Place
Los Angeles made another strong showing in this year’s survey, continuing its leading work in digital inclusion, mobility and cybersecurity. The nation’s second most populous city cites tackling homelessness as its top priority for the coming year, an initiative in which the Information Technology Agency (ITA) is playing a critical role. As part of $1.2 billion from a ballot measure toward homelessness and housing, ITA aids in citywide communication on the issue, including a predictive analytics tool that identifies those Angelenos most at risk before they become homeless so the city can provide preventative services. ITA also heads digital inclusion efforts for those who are struggling financially or are in need of training in new digital schools, and assists with real-time homeless services like coordination of response at the street level.
The Southern California metropolis is prioritizing creating equity across the city workforce in terms of both gender and race and working to develop a portal that makes it easier to report incidents of harassment and discrimination. This is in keeping with the city’s report that their No. 1 priority in the next year is hiring and retaining IT personnel. ITA reports that 52 percent of their workforce will be eligible for retirement over the next two years, and to help compensate for that loss is continuing its paid college internship program and is working on a mobile worker program. To further negotiate the digital divide, ITA and the Mayor’s Office have collaborated on the Find Your Future program, which uses gamification and other tech to pair disconnected youth with local jobs that put them on the path toward careers.
L.A. also has a strong mobility-first initiative, and in the near future plans to develop data security, privacy and sharing guidelines. The L.A. Cyber Center now provides services to more than 600 organizations, and a new citywide social media policy brings together teams from across 42 departments in a unified citizen-facing front at @LACity on Twitter.
Population 250,000-499,999
Long Beach: 7th Place
Long Beach took seventh place this year, and it’s no surprise given the work the city’s more than 150 IT professionals have been doing to prioritize cloud infrastructure and emerging technologies for service delivery and modernization.
The city devoted 25 percent of its IT budget to cloud and infrastructure services this year, channeling that money towards innovative solutions like its “MarinaGo” application, which lets customers of the city’s marina pay bills or manage relevant documents through online accounts, accessible via computer, smartphone or tablet. At the same time, the city has also partnered with a cloud-based mapping and analytics service provider, RapidDeploy, which gives emergency dispatchers the ability to more accurately locate wireless callers and dispatch appropriate responders. It also continues to invest in other cloud-enabling platforms that manage, secure or integrate cloud systems, as well as prioritize cloud training for city staff.
Long Beach has also prioritized emerging technologies not merely as a more efficient means of service delivery, but as a local economic driver and job creator. In 2019, the city launched a startup accelerator, the goal of which is to create a space where early stage tech startups are given the legal, financial and business planning they need to succeed, while also gaining access to capital from different sources. The city also completed its first year in the Startup in Residence (STiR) program, which allowed several city departments to work together with startups to develop solutions to pertinent issues, including traffic calming and mapping resources, artificial intelligence hiring and digital wayfinding.
Riverside: 10th Place
Riverside, which recently restored IT work and positions eliminated by a budget shortfall, now uses technology to help resolve unfunded pension obligations from the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS). The city of more than 328,000 slipped from seventh last year to 10th but continues to exhibit a strong use of data-driven performance measurement and decision-making; innovative department-level tech initiatives; and a strong focus on cybersecurity.
The city’s Innovation and Technology Department keeps the challenge of CalPERS front of mind — analyzing data to identify operational efficiencies and educate departments on cost-saving and forecasting long-term project costs to ensure successful implementations. I&T has also taken aim at homelessness with GIS mapping — tracking reports of debris and encampments; mapping property ownership to facilitate cleanups; and showing affordable housing locations.
Another top priority is strengthening and expanding cybersecurity work. Riverside utilizes machine learning to guard against ransomware and advanced threats. A data loss prevention project spearheaded by its security division looked closely at city liability and has boosted awareness of how sensitive data is handled; and of the need to reduce and prevent creation of protected data.
Riverside is developing a data governance framework. A platform to stimulate data sharing internally and externally, and its Open Data Governance Committee, will become a subsidiary of its Data Governance Committee. The city has implemented Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to mechanize repetitive work and free up staff. It’s also expanded “The Hive,” the city’s collaboration platform, taking paper-based workflows electronic; and has put in place quarterly and annual citywide performance measures. The city also convenes a quarterly IT liaison meeting with departments, which has helped forge strategy and deliver best practices.
Population 125,000-249,999
Pasadena: 5th Place
Officials in Pasadena worked to improve citizen engagement, which, with key planning and progress on other tech projects, helped move the city from a tie for sixth place last year to a tie for fifth. Pasadena has made investments to enhance communication, debuting a ZenCity presence that brings together social and traditional media with data sets to better understand community talking points. The city is continuing work from 2018 with Meltwater to better manage marketing and branding through its social media monitoring solution.
Staffers created and launched the first phase of new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and performance metrics across the enterprise. Plans are to develop an interactive dashboard to display those metrics this fiscal year.
The city showcased its innovation in July at the 2019 Esri User Conference. Initiatives included the city fire department’s Operations Dashboard launch, using Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform to integrate calls for service, equipment location, hydrant data and other indicators; and an app that creates a digital twin of the city, to assist the Planning Department in modeling development and growth.
The city transportation department is working with the California Department of Transportation, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and other cities in connecting on- and off-ramps to the 210 freeway via fiber optics, to improve traffic flow.
Pasadena will revisit cybersecurity strategy during the next year to 18 months, including its cybersecurity response; identity and access management; and cloud security plans. The city issued an RFP this year, to do an Information Risk Assessment and help the IT security officer’s team improve security practices. The city and the California Institute of Technology received a National Science Foundation Grant. In a collaboration that expanded this year, the partners are working on using fiber optics to measure earthquakes.
Corona: 6th place
Becoming a data-driven city — ensuring access to key data analytics in real time — has helped Corona better understand projects and policies and what needs changing because of inefficiencies. Measuring outcomes and using AI and predictive analysis has helped the city streamline efforts.
An example is the city’s efforts to curb homelessness. The IT department helped coordinate a transparent performance analytics dashboard to understand how the city’s efforts are working and to help the citizens understand what the city is doing in this regard. The dashboard gleans disparate data from multiple sources, providing information in one location.
Corona has also undertaken a robust cybersecurity defense. The city chose the Microsoft Azure GCC platform and deploys next-generation firewalls, intelligent endpoints (remediation), hardened cloud infrastructure, a self-healing network and access identity systems. An AI system evaluates logins and will automatically block one if a problem arises and notify an administrator.
The city does a monthly scan of the dark web to search for any issues that could be a security risk. Corona also uses a service to monitor and test employees. The city uses Microsoft Intune and Microsoft identity to protect its software network and will deploy Cisco Identity Services Engine to protect from hardware intrusion.
Rancho Cucamonga: 7th Place
Rancho Cucamonga moved up from ninth place in 2018 to seventh place this year. For its size (roughly 177,000 people), this city engages in a wide array of IT-driven projects. The most obvious example is its use of a new small robot assistant in City Hall that, among other features, can help visitors navigate the building with its “follow-me” capability.
The city’s IT team finished an automated workflow system in 2019 that connects street workers, traffic engineers and citizen-reported issues through an integrated application. Not only does the system allow road crews to geotag assets and modifications in a comprehensive reporting feature, but it has also dramatically increased the efficiency of roadway management. A problem that might have taken days or weeks to go through the communication chain can now make the rounds in minutes or hours.
Through a new Office of Communications, the city has transformed online, phone and in-person citizen engagement components into understandable and approachable experiences. As part of this effort, the city introduced in 2019 a variety of cloud-based services, including ones for meeting management, public information requests, access to city records and direct engagement on initiatives.
During the summer, the city kicked off its citywide fiber broadband project, which was made possible by a public-private partnership with Inyo Networks. In addition to helping with the goal of giving residents and businesses high-speed Internet, this initiative has assisted the city with technological strategies, such as boosting connectivity between most city buildings and two data centers and increasing capacity for smart transportation.
Roseville: 10th Place
In 2000, the city of Roseville had a population of just under 80,000. Today, 20 years later, the city has grown into a metropolis of close to 140,000. The explosive growth has led to challenges around fiscal management and balanced resources. To deal with the situation and to ensure technology is part of the solution, Roseville has created a Vision 2020 Strategic Technology Roadmap. It calls for hiring and retaining competent and skilled IT personnel, increasing collaboration both internally and externally and making sure good data is driving the right decisions. To that end, the city has begun to focus on the kinds of tools it needs for analytics, and it has migrated more than 50 percent of its systems and applications to the cloud.
The city also has a growing homelessness problem and has turned to GIS to help conduct point-in-time population counts and to help steer the vulnerable to the services they need. Roseville has launched a new self-service portal for workers that has reduced service calls by 10 percent. On the innovation front, the city has invested in drone technology to support its public safety programs.
*The Center for Digital Government is part of e.Republic, Techwire's parent company.
