Reaching beyond the loudest voices to understand what residents really want.
How Fort Lauderdale used Zencity to move past the loudest voices and gain a clear, community-wide understanding of public sentiment on a high-profile stadium project.
The Challenge
In 2019, Fort Lauderdale received an unsolicited proposal from David Beckham and the Inter Miami team to build an 18,000-seat stadium complex. The plan promised major community benefits—parks, training facilities, a second stadium for local teams—but also sparked immediate backlash from a vocal group of residents.
City leaders knew these loud voices didn’t necessarily represent the whole community. With legal disputes brewing and headlines swirling, they needed a way to cut through the noise and understand what all residents truly thought about the project—not just the ones who showed up at City Hall. 
The Zencity Solution
To get a full picture of public sentiment, Fort Lauderdale turned to Zencity’s AI-powered platform. Instead of relying on formal feedback channels or outdated surveys, the city analyzed organic online discourse—thousands of conversations across social media, local news, blogs, and forums.
What they found was a game-changer: the vocal opposition was a minority. Most residents were either positive or neutral about the proposal and excited about revitalizing the space. Zencity’s real-time sentiment dashboard gave the City a reliable, data-driven way to track public perception at every key milestone.
Actionable, Data-based Insights
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Reach: Zencity surfaced over 10,000 organic resident interactions, far beyond what traditional outreach methods could capture.
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Understand: Sentiment analysis revealed that only 289 of those interactions were negative, validating that the broader community supported the City’s decision.
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Act: With these insights, Fort Lauderdale moved forward with confidence, knowing they had community backing—both during the legal process and in their communications.
They also discovered that most of the public discourse occurred outside of City-owned channels, highlighting how Zencity uniquely gathers the full picture of community conversation.
And they didn’t stop there. Fort Lauderdale continues to use Zencity to monitor sentiment as the new stadium opens—ensuring that community feedback remains at the heart of how the site is managed.
“When the City accepted the proposal for Lockhart Stadium, it drew a lot of attention in the community, both good and bad. Zencity’s data showed us that most of the community backed our decision to activate the site and confirmed that we made the right choice.”
— Rob Hernandez – Deputy City Manager, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Setting the Standard for Public Engagement
This is what good engagement looks like—timely, inclusive, and actionable. By helping cities go beyond the loudest voices to truly understand their communities, Zencity is setting the global standard for what meaningful public engagement should be.
