When public engagement efforts are ineffective, they tend to attract a lot of media attention. Successful engagement projects, however, often fail to receive the same degree of interest. But we want to change that. And because all good things come in, err, eights, here’s our list of the top eight North American cities that are internalizing public engagement best practices (and creating new ones) through efforts to genuinely empower their citizens.

Boston, MA

Screenshots of Boston’s Citizens Connect App

The City on a Hill was the nation’s first large municipality to create a civic innovation department, impressively titled the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics. It has successfully harnessed the power of its residents to improve city government through too many groundbreaking apps to name, including Citizens Connect, which monitors city service delivery, and the “gamified” Community PlanIt, which has broadened and enriched dialogue between its public schools and community members. Boston’s strong engagement presence online is also complemented by unique face-to-face efforts, such as its first-in-the-country youth participatory budgeting program.

Calgary (Canada)

Alberta’s largest city has long been an energy and financial services hub. But Calgary may also soon be a center for public engagement, given the large growth in its public engagement staff, as well as how far it goes in collecting realistic and facilitated citizen input on redevelopment plans. What’s more, Calgary’s “Engagement Bus” is one of the coolest ideas we’ve seen on how to solicit resident feedback on public transport in a fun, unique way.

Salt Lake City, UT

Utah’s capital was one of the pioneers of employing online ideational platforms to pose questions to residents and gather their qualitative responses. Salt Lake is also a leader in posting a range of city datasets for both hackers and the general public, often at their suggestion, and put in place one of the more-extensive citywide visioning efforts we’ve seen. Its most recent outreach effort aims to build on the city’s existing reputation for outdoor recreation by determining the future of its numerous parks, a project that is adding to Salt Lake’s already-impressive track record of open government and face-to-face consultations with citizens.

Springfield, MO

When it comes to community involvement, the “Queen City of the Ozarks” is gradually being recognized as a leader. Its Community Voice platform allows residents to suggest ideas on how to improve city services, comment or rate the suggestions of others, and earn points for doing so. Its annual “Treasures of the City” event is a novel take on elementary civics education. Its rotating “listening meetings” in different parts of the city are well attended and solicit a wide variety of community input. It also just launched an app that serves as a one-stop shop for both citizens monitoring city services and city employees digitally reporting issues.

Yellowknife (Canada)

A “Community Showcase Night” in Yellowknife

Yellowknife, capital of the Northwest Territories, is one of the few cities that actually claims to follow the widely-cited IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation, which promotes sustainable and engaging decisions by providing citizens the information they need to make them. And it certainly walks the walk as well, evidenced by its engaging use of storyboards, detailed citizen surveys, and involvement of the community in development plans.

Oakland, CA

Lying just north of Silicon Valley, east of San Francisco, and south of Berkeley, Oakland has always had a more gritty reputation, with tech-based engagement projects seeming to continually bypass it. With the help of Code for America, this is now changing. Open Oakland puts on a range of events and develops a number of portals in partnership with the city, which make government more responsive for residents. In addition, Oakland was one of the earliest cities to transform data queries and freedom of information requests via its RecordTrac app, which is gradually being adopted across the country.

Beaverton, OR

Beaverton has made a name for itself above and beyond the community involvement plaudits often won by Portland, its easterly neighbor. The mid-sized suburb is home to Oregon’s fastest-growing immigrant population, and it has tailored its public engagement activities to make the most of this diversity. The Beaverton Organizing and Leadership Development Program encourages civic participation among the city’s immigrant communities through a series of interactive, day-long workshops. Other programs aimed at increasing active citizenship from a broader swath of Beaverton residents include the Center for Intercultural Organizing, which often partners with the city and refugees, in particular, and the Diversity Advisory Board, which helps the city better serve and ultimately engage ethnic communities.

Long Beach, CA

Long Beach was one of just fourteen new 2014 additions to Bloomberg Philanthropies’ highly sought-after Innovation Team grants. In conjunction with local groups, it has whetted its engagement chops by “taking the pulse” of the community through compelling, well-attended events like its People’s State of the City. Further, it has gained experience with online engagement through its Go Long Beach app, which was among the first in the country for a city of its size. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Council Member Rex Richardson’s community website, which is one of the best district online portals that we’ve seen.

Know of more impressive cities for public engagement? Post a comment or contact us directly and we’ll consider them for our next highlight blog!