Joseph Cevetello said the coastal city ran entirely on paper-based processes when he arrived in 2017.

Seventeen fellows spread across seven U.S. cities will work on projects that include housing-data portals, resource maps for formerly incarcerated people and a food-stamp app.

Through partnerships and persistence, cities can gather enough data to attain a nuanced understanding of the populace's overall health and comfort, speakers said at Smart Cities Week Silicon Valley.