A Closer Look at California's Most Digital Cities – Part II

California is inextricably linked with the technology industry. It's the home of Silicon Valley, arguably the global center of artificial intelligence and technological innovation, so it’s only fitting that the local governments spread across the state would carry that torch in service of their constituents.

In this year’s Digital Cities Survey*, California cities made up nearly a quarter of those recognized for their innovation and service to the public. Of the 56 cities on this year’s list, 13 are from the Golden State.

Respondents to this survey highlighted several near-term priorities, including a focus on cybersecurity; customer experience; AI and machine learning; process automation; recovery and resilience; analytics and intelligence; data governance; workforce training and retention; agency collaboration; and modernization.

In honor of these recipients, we’ll be taking a closer look at their work in this three-part series. The following cities were recognized within the 250,000 to 499,999 or more population category:

1st: Long Beach

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.

7th: Riverside

Riverside 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

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

While Irvine 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.

*Note: The Digital Cities Survey is from the Center for Digital Government, which is part of e.Republic, Industry Insider — California's parent company.