Smart City Initiative

Vision

The Smart City Initiative advances solutions to civic challenges by engaging the community, staff, and private sector to explore and implement emerging technology.

Guiding Principles

The following guiding principles will provide a framework to align the City’s portfolio of technology projects:

1. Design for Equity: Reducing historic inequities and disparities by ensuring technology advancements are accessible to all and improve quality of life for communities that have been underserved.

2. Earn Public Trust: Building public confidence through excellence in data privacy, data transparency, and community engagement.

3. Cultivate Local Expertise: Promoting place-based growth by supporting Long Beach entrepreneurs and businesses, improving workforce job-readiness, and building partnership networks.

4. Build Civic Resilience: Improving capacity to respond efficiently and effectively to the most-pressing civic challenges using data-informed decision-making.

Strategies and Objectives

The Smart City Initiative contains 4 interconnected strategies and 11 objectives that align with the guiding principles and together create a roadmap through FY 2022. 

City Priority Challenges 

The City's current priority challenges include: 

• Recovering from the COVID-19 economic and public health crisis;

• Executing the City’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan;

• Making City Hall more accessible and increasing civic engagement;

• Improving transportation and mobility and reducing transportation-related emissions;

• Closing the digital divide;

• Improving efficiency of operations and service delivery;

• Reducing homelessness and housing insecurity; and

• Ending systemic racism and reducing racial wealth gaps.

Building Blocks

• Existing City Plans: The Smart City Initiative will provide solutions to the needs already identified in documents like the proposed Long Beach Recovery Act, Framework for Racial  Reconciliation, Economic Development Blueprint, Climate Action & Adaptation Plan, and Digital Inclusion Roadmap. 

• Meeting Long Beach needs: We are not building smart city out of fear of missing out on the next big trend. For Long Beach, it’s about developing long-term solutions to the issues our residents and visitors face every single day.

• Technology is just a tool, not a solution: We believe that technology is not always the answer, but instead one of many tools to achieve the desired outcome. Sometimes the best solutions to problems are simple and don’t involve technology at all.