Long Beach – Technology for an improved quality of life for its citizens

Long Beach – Technology for an improved quality of life for its citizens

The Smart City Long Beach projects aim to leverage advancements in technology, data management, and user-centered design in order to improve residents’ quality-of-life and promote digital equity. Smart Long Beach will better prepare the city to utilize emerging technologies, which will be deployed responsibly to meet community-sourced needs. With a purpose to foster civic engagement and allow for improvements in service delivery to residents, the smart city project has developed the rightful guiding principles to support this effort.

In 2019, the city of Long Beach was named a Top 10 Digital City in a survey conducted by the Center for Digital Government. This recognition refers to the efforts to build modern technology infrastructure and efficient foundational systems; protect public safety using technology; and improve public engagement through open data and enhanced payment systems.

Challenges

Urbanization is evolving with a variety of challenges that cities must address. Long Beach City faced the difficulty of improving energy distribution, streamline trash collection, traffic congestion, and air quality. Also, other, more sensitive facets of the community had to be addressed, including homelessness.

In an interview with IIoT-World, Ryan Kurtzman, the project leader for Smart Cities in Long Beach, explained the main challenges the smart city plan would address.

“Using IIoT technologies, the city is interested in solving community-sourced challenges that fall under several categories, including:

• homelessness
• mobility
• climate change
• government transparency
• operational efficiency. 

Our smart city initiative will build upon our existing priorities, plans, and programs, such as our Blueprint for Economic Development, Climate Action & Adaptation Plan, and homelessness task force recommendations. We believe a coordinated approach to design, pilot, and propose smart city solutions will address not only the quality of life for Long Beach residents, but will catalyze economic development, improve public safety, enhance visitor experiences, and build a resilient workforce.”

Ryan Kurtzman, the Project Lead for Smart Cities, the City of Long Beach

The project is gaining momentum with the aid of technology, as well as a variety of organizations and individuals, including technology providers, foundations, research institutions, community-based organizations, community members, and city staff. 

Smart City Projects in Long Beach

 To be defined as smart, cities must incorporate several parameters for functional areas,  such as governance, energy, buildings, mobility, infrastructure, healthcare, and citizens. Long Beach has focused on integrating most of the smart components above in its projects. Read the profile we created for Long Beach to find a listing of successfully implemented programs.