HOW LONG BEACH PROTOTYPED A PARK USING CITYMART

In 2015, the City of Long Beach set out to position itself as Southern California’s innovation engine: a city that welcomes, supports, and ultimately exports advancements in technology. The City’s Innovation Team (i-team), funded with the help of Bloomberg Philanthropies, identified a lack of affordable downtown workspace as a challenge for local innovators. The i-team framed these issues as an opportunity to ask the question: How might the City of Long Beach catalyze a local ecosystem that supports the innovation economy?

With these goals in mind, Long Beach solicited promising ideas to effectively drive an innovation ecosystem. The i-team distributed a survey to city employees at all levels of government to solicit ideas on this opportunity and convened a Citymart problem-framing workshop. The team went above and beyond to engage residents and the community throughout the process.

Read more on Citymart.com