Taipei is the eighth smartest city in the world, according to an index published by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) on Thursday.
Taipei, Taiwan's capital, saw its ranking fall by one notch from last year in the IMD index, which is in its second year.
Singapore, Helsinki and Zurich are the world's smartest cities, the index showed, at a time of growing concern over the future of global cities in the post-COVID-19 era.
Lausanne-based IMD surveyed more than 13,000 people in 109 cities, who were questioned about how they perceived the impact of technology in five areas: health/safety, mobility, activities, opportunities and governance.
"It is of course too early to draw final lessons from COVID. However, it is clear that we are at a critical juncture, where the health crisis is still very much with us, while the economic and social crisis that it will entail has hardly started," Bruno Lanvin, President of the IMD Smart City Observatory, said in a statement published on the IMD website.
"This year's Smart City Index suggests that the cities that have been able to combine technologies, leadership and a strong culture of 'living and acting together' should be able to better withstand the most damaging effects of such crises," Lanvin said in the statement.
"The world's 'smart' cities don't simply adopt new technology, they make sure it truly improves citizens' lives," Arturo Bris, director of the IMD World Competitiveness Center, was quoted as saying in a Reuters report Thursday.
"I think we're moving to a world where we will be more dispersed. We will be safer if we live in smaller cities," he was quoted as saying in the report.
On the top 10 list, Auckland, Oslo, Copenhagen and Geneva were ranked from fourth to seventh, ahead of Amsterdam and New York in ninth and 10th place.
Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, Nairobi, capital of Kenya, and Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, ranked bottom.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Flor Wang
Quelle/Source: Focus Taiwan, 18.09.2020
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