Baton Rouge moved up five spots to No. 5 among the Top 10 Digital Cities with populations of 125,000 to 249,000, according to a new annual ranking from the Center for Digital Government.
“Baton Rouge is working toward a centralized IT environment, moving tech functions out of individual departments in order to operate more efficiently,” writes the California-based national research center.
The center praises Baton Rouge for advancements it’s made in making data on crime, purchasing, bids and parcels, among other things, available on its Open Data BR site. It also notes Baton Rouge’s efforts for maintaining fiscal transparency, working to develop a local computer science talent pipeline, implementing a new citizen engagement system and rebuilding Red Stick 311 to improve mobile performance.
“In one high-profile example, the city leveraged Periscope and Facebook Live to maximize the reach of press conferences held in the aftermath of the death of Alton Sterling,” the center writes. “That event also tested Baton Rouge’s cybersecurity preparedness, as the city’s network was targeted by hacktivists bent on doing harm to digital assets. Working with internal, external and private-sector partners, the hacking attempts were successfully thwarted.”
The Center for Digital Government ranking is based on a survey distributed to all U.S. cities, towns, villages, and consolidated city and county governments. Using criteria ranging from open government to transparency and citizen engagement, a panel of judges then places cities into five population-based categories.
Baton Rouge is in the third-largest category, ranked behind first-place Durham, North Carolina; Fort Collins, Colorado; Cape Coral, Florida; and Alexandria and Hampton, both in Virginia. Top-ranked cities will receive an award on Thursday at the National League of Cities’ annual conference in Pittsburgh.
Mayor Kip Holden says being ranked in the Top 10 for a second year in a row validates efforts the city-parish has made toward technology enhancements and innovation.
“Over the past several years, we have made tremendous progress in how we are utilizing technology to create a more transparent, engaging, and efficient city-parish—efforts that have put Baton Rouge squarely on the map and in a leadership position among our peers when it comes to digital innovation,” Holden says in a prepared statement.
—Alexandria Burris
