CityView CMS
CityView CMS is a multi-tenant, AI-assisted content platform built for towns, cities, and regions that need to keep residents informed without hiring a full-time digital team. From events and news to locations, tickets, and QR-powered experiences, CityView turns municipal data into clear, timely, resident-facing storytelling.
Challenge: Fragmented City Communication
Most cities try to manage digital communication across a maze of tools: separate sites for events, static pages for locations, third-party ticketing links, and social posts that never quite line up. Staff are busy, content is scattered, and residents are left digging for the information they need.
CityView started from a simple question: what would it look like if a city had a single, AI-assisted system where events, locations, businesses, news, tickets, and QR-powered experiences all lived together?
Opportunity: A Platform for Civic Storytelling
We saw an opportunity to treat a city the way a modern brand treats its digital presence. One place where staff could manage everything: events, itineraries, locations, businesses, tickets, memberships, and content — with AI helping fill in the gaps instead of adding more work.
Instead of one-off websites or static portals, we set out to build a reusable, multi-tenant CMS designed specifically for civic use cases. The goal was simple: let cities act quickly, publish confidently, and keep residents in the loop without needing a dedicated full-stack team.
CityView CMS became the backbone of that idea — an admin-first platform where city teams can manage everything happening in their community and send it anywhere it needs to go.
Challenges We Set Out to Solve
- •Content scattered across multiple systems, vendors, and spreadsheets
- •Staff without technical backgrounds asked to manage complex digital tools
- •No single source of truth for events, locations, businesses, or tickets
- •Vendors owning the resident relationship instead of the city owning its own data
- •Limited ways to experiment with QR codes, passes, or new digital programs without starting from scratch
Solution: A Modern, AI-Assisted City CMS
Under the hood, CityView CMS is a modern React + TypeScript admin application powered by a custom API layer. It combines a flexible content model with AI tools, QR codes, ticketing, and integrations that cities actually use — all inside a single, cohesive interface.
Technology Stack & Architecture
- •React + TypeScript for a strongly typed, component-driven admin experience
- •Material UI + Tailwind CSS for a custom design system with rapid layout control
- •MongoDB for for data storage, Stripe for subscriptions and ticket payments, and OpenAI for AI assistance
Unified Content Model
Events, locations, businesses, itineraries, tickets, QR codes, and members share a consistent content model, making it easy to build new programs on top without reinventing the stack every time.
Role-Based Access & Workflows
A granular role system controls who can publish, approve, and manage different parts of the city's digital presence — from tourism teams to economic development, marketing, and admin staff.
AI-Assisted Creation
AI tools help draft event descriptions, news posts, itineraries, and business spotlights so staff can start from a strong first version instead of a blank page — then refine with their local expertise.
Engagement: From Static Pages to Living City Experiences
Once CityView CMS went live, cities were able to treat their digital presence as a continuous, living story of what's happening locally — instead of a static website they dread updating. Staff workflows got faster, resident information got clearer, and new programs could be launched without chasing yet another vendor.
What Changed for City Teams
Instead of manually updating multiple tools, staff now log into one system to manage events, locations, tickets, and stories. AI suggestions help them move faster, while reusable templates and forms keep content consistent across departments.
QR codes and digital passes created new ways to engage residents — from event check-ins to scavenger hunts, walking tours, and local loyalty programs. The same admin that manages the content also manages the programs behind it.
For residents, the experience is simple: a single, cohesive, city-branded front door where everything feels connected — events, places to go, things to do, and stories about their community.
Engagement Outcomes
- •Faster publishing cycles for events, news, and city announcements — often reduced from days to hours
- •Clear ownership of content by city teams instead of being locked into external vendor workflows
- •Increased usage of QR codes and passes for events, programs, and campaigns — all tracked through a single admin
- •Consistent branding and messaging across the city's public-facing sites, newsletters, and printed materials
- •A foundation to add new programs (memberships, passes, itineraries, sponsorships) without starting a new project every time
Staff Experience
Non-technical staff can log in, find what they need, and make updates without fear of “breaking the site.” The admin is structured around the way cities actually work, not how developers wish they did.
Resident Communication
Residents see more complete event listings, richer stories, and clearer information about where to go and what's happening — all under a single city-branded experience.
Long-Term Impact
CityView CMS gives cities a digital foundation they can grow into — not grow out of. As new programs, events, and partnerships come online, they plug into the same admin, content model, and AI-assisted workflows.
The Build: From Admin Panel to City Platform
CityView CMS started as an internal admin and evolved into a full-blown civic platform. Behind the scenes is a lot of quiet engineering work: designing reusable patterns, building a flexible schema, and wiring everything together so city teams never have to think about any of it.
Content & Data Architecture
Events, locations, communities, businesses, news, tickets, QR codes, and members are all modeled with shared concepts: tags, images, time, relationships, and organizations. This lets us reuse components, forms, and layouts instead of building one-off solutions for every new idea.
A dedicated services layer abstracts the API, while TypeScript types and form schemas keep the UI and backend in sync. When the platform grows, the admin doesn't get messier — it gets richer.
Experience & Performance
Material UI components, Tailwind layout utilities, and custom theming give CityView a consistent visual language across every screen. Loading states, optimistic updates, and validation patterns are standardized so the app feels fast and predictable.
The result is an admin that feels closer to a modern SaaS product than a government back-office tool — which is exactly the point.
Extensible Programs & QR Flows
QR codes, tickets, and passes are built on top of the same core entities, which means cities can launch programs like festivals, loyalty trails, museum crawls, or holiday passports without a new codebase each time.
Scanner roles, access codes, and facts give fine-grained control over who can scan, what counts as a valid scan, and how those interactions are tracked for reporting.
Built to Evolve With Cities
CityView CMS is intentionally not “done.” The architecture leaves room for new AI flows, new content types, and new front-end experiences while keeping the administrative core stable and familiar for staff.
That's the real outcome: a platform that grows with the city, not one that has to be replaced the moment the city's ambitions outgrow the original scope.