Smart City Initiative

Strategy 

On March 9, 2021, the Long Beach City Council voted to approve the Long Beach Smart City Initiative Strategy, which outlines a vision, guiding principles, and a set of actionable strategies and objectives. +Read the full Smart City Initiative Strategy

The Smart City Initiative Strategy will provide the City with a coordinated approach to using technology to solve City challenges. This is a collaborative effort rooted in community voices to build on foundations that are already in place, expand our capacity, and use resources efficiently. 

Annual Reports

Our annual reports document our progress in meeting the objectives of the Smart City Strategy and showcase innovative technology and data privacy accomplishments over the last year. This year, we created the report in a community-friendly and language-accessible format.

 +2023 Annual Report (Full)
 +2023 Annual Report Community Briefs
 +2022 Annual Report

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 

• Economic opportunity, equity & resiliency: Long Beach provides economic opportunity for all.
• Digital inclusion & technology: People have access to technology to learn, communicate, engage, and thrive in our City.
• Housing & homelessness: Housing is available, safe, inviting and affordable.
• Mobility, equity placemaking, & reimagining the public right of way: Mobility and infrastructure needs are met for all individuals and communities in Long Beach.
• Public safety: People are safe and secure in their homes and neighborhoods.
• Health, behavioral health & wellness: People and communities are healthy and well.
• Education: People have access to quality education across their life span to learn and grow.
• Climate & environmental sustainability: Long Beach is environmentally sustainable and resilient. 
• Government resilience & service delivery: Ensure Long Beach can effectively and resiliently engage and serve communities.

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.