Annual survey honors U.S. cities improving constituent services through innovative technology.

The Center for Digital Government (CDG) announces the winners of the 24th annual Digital Cities Survey, recognizing cities utilizing technology to enhance digital services and transparency, strengthen cybersecurity, digital privacy rights, and digital equity, and those finding innovative ways to support solutions for social challenges facing cities today. The top 10-ranking cities in each of five population categories will be honored during the Digital Cities Awards event at the National League of Cities “City Summit” on November 13 in Tampa Bay, Florida. Registration is complimentary and open only to the public sector.

“Cities of every size are redefining what’s possible using technology to elevate public service and improve government,” said John Matelski, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Government. “The Digital Cities Survey is proud to honor these visionary leaders and cities setting bold new benchmarks in digital governance. Congratulations to all those driving impactful change and pioneering the future of local government with innovation and steadfast commitment.”

This year’s first place winners in each population category include:

  • City of San Diego, Calif. (500,000 or more population category): San Diego has a citizen-centric focus with implementation of digital, emerging, and AI technologies to improve city services and citizens’ digital experience. For example, they use many channels to collect feedback to drive enhancements, the Get IT Done system posts service requests to a public-facing dashboard, and they released an artificial intelligence chatbot called My eCISO to help small businesses and agencies improve their cyber security programs. They are researching several GenAI chatbots and launched one for the City Regulations and Code.
  • City of Long Beach, Calif. (250,000 – 499,999 population category): The Long Beach Technology & Innovation Department is helping drive city operations that support city priorities with the launch of the Equitable Data Collection Toolkit, the Civic User Research process to evaluate the usability and effectiveness of digital services, the Data Privacy Champions Workgroup with staff to implement their Data Privacy Policy, and the Co-Lab challenge-based community procurement program and the internal Smart City Challenge.
  • City of Scottsdale, Ariz. (125,000-249,999 population category): Scottsdale, Arizona expanded data governance citywide, driving innovation in data and information management, business intelligence, AI and machine learning, open data and GIS. They established a Data Council and implemented a data catalog platform that serves as a single source for all data assets. They constructed 100 miles of new fiber conduits and upgraded the microwave and fiber transport network that serves Scottsdale, Phoenix, and 20 more regional municipalities.
  • City of South Bend, Ind. (75,000-124,999 population category): South Bend, Indiana not only conducted internal training for AI integration and uses, but also developed and published a comprehensive city-wide policy. They are participants in the GovAI Coalition, MetroLab, and NLC AI Advisory Committee. The city is working in a data-driven culture and is developing and has many key performance indicators in place.
  • City of Marietta, Ga. (up to 75,000 population category): Marietta, Georgia’s IT focuses on the overall impact when implementing technology improvements. For example, for the GridTrust project, their partnership with the city-owned power utility and Georgia Tech students resulted in a technology that provides a capability that may be useful to every utility in the country – a best practice achievement in protecting electrical grids.

See the full list of Top 10 winners in each of the five population categories.

CDG expresses its gratitude to the underwriters of this year’s survey: Premier Corporate Members – Amazon Web Services, Inc. and Avanade; Standard Corporate Members – Accela, Granicus/Carahsoft, SHI International Corp. and Workday.

About the Center for Digital Government:
The Center for Digital Government is a national research and advisory institute focused on technology policy and best practices in state and local government.