In 2018, the City of West Hollywood unveiled its SMART City Strategic Plan—a multi-phase roadmap to incorporate smart technologies, digital tools, and data analytics into a variety of city services. The goal is to use these technologies, combined with improvements to the built environment, to make city services more effective and efficient. The plan identifies five areas of focus: Sustainability, Mobility, Accessibility, Resiliency, and Transparency.
SOM contributed to the plan by using a proprietary research tool called Health Topography—a method to better understand how technology can be applied in the city, through an analysis of socioeconomic, cultural, infrastructure, built, and natural factors. This methodology helped the City of West Hollywood understand how these elements relate to each other, and pinpointed the optimal locations for future investments.
As a result of the Health Topography analysis, the City renewed its focus on the Santa Monica Boulevard corridor, where the area’s diverse neighborhoods intersect. SOM developed a 3D digital model of Santa Monica Boulevard to visualize the impact of future SMART City interventions.
To help the City communicate its SMART City Strategic Plan, SOM developed a “graphic novel” to educate residents, businesses and visitors about upcoming changes. In a playful, illustrative format, it shows some of the ways new technologies, good urban design, and public realm programming can improve quality of life in West Hollywood.
The SMART City Strategic Plan will be implemented through a series of pilot projects, allowing the community to test and provide feedback on new technologies, policies, and programs before they are rolled out on a larger scale. Through an informed, strategic decision-making process, the City will plan and deliver improved services to the community.
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