TITLE
Recommendation to direct City Manager to investigate costs and benefits of including WiFi as a cost of construction as new city parks are built; investigate private/public partnerships with WiFi providers to install wireless connectivity in new and current city parks; complete report and forward to Parks and Recreation Commission in 90 days before it returns to City Council for discussion and action.
DISCUSSION
Wireless Internet access has become a standard amenity in many public spaces around the country.
Parks, in particular, have become places where people expect to find wireless access. Many parks in
New York, San Francisco, and other cities provide wireless access, as do many of California's State
parks. Cities nationwide are providing wireless service in parks as a way to provide new services to
residents and visitors.
Today's service and information-driven economy is driven by internet connectivity. Many
professionals need to be mobile and choose to spend many working hours away from the office - if
they even have an office. Mobility and instant access to information and communication has become
more important to many professionals than having an office or a paid staff. Young, creative members
of the workforce in particular expect reliable WiFi service to be available in an urban environment.
As Long Beach continues to seek to attract creative class residents and a modern urban workforce by
leading the way on technology and quality of life, wireless services must expand so that most of the
City serves as a reliable means of connecting to the Internet.
Offering WiFi in some parks as a pilot program would ensure such an amenity would be sustainable
and appropriate for Long Beach in the long term.
Long Beach has been named a top-ten digital city two years in a row, thanks to your investment in
digital technology, as exemplified by the Go Long Beach smartphone application, our use of social
media, the consolidation of document management systems, o...
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