Digital Transformation and Divide of Cities through the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost all sectors of society in a short period. In this paper, we study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on smart cities through analyses of 311 data of cities and the residents in the United States. We have compared various aspects of municipal governments' service platforms and citizens' requests during pre-COVID, the lockdown, and the rest of the pandemic duration. Among multiple observations from the data, we discover the noticeable changes in the digital transformation of citizens' voices during the COVID-19 pandemic. We observe disparities in service adaptation across many cities, where only a few cities have quickly added pandemic responsive service types and favorable 311 mobile apps in addition to phone and online web services. Besides the digital transformation of residents and municipal governments, we also find that various aspects of divides of residents, such as economic, COVID-related health, and demands are closely related to each other. We have built a comprehensive website that dynamically collects 311 data from municipal open data of cities in the United States that other researchers or urban planners can use to understand citizens' voices better and draw insights.