Produced by the Smart City Observatory, the index seeks to find out how technology is enabling cities to achieve a higher quality of life for their inhabitants.
The Swiss city of Zurich is ranked top in this year’s IMD Smart City Index, with the Norwegian capital of Oslo in second place and Australia’s capital city of Canberra in third.
The Index is produced by the Smart City Observatory, part of the Institute of Management (IMD) World Competitiveness Centre, and claims to differ from others by being citizen-centric.
The index combines hard data and survey responses to show the extent to which technology is enabling cities to address the challenges they face to achieve a higher quality of life for inhabitants.
Super smart cities
Asian and European cities dominate the top 20 cities, out of 141 studied. Six cities, referred to as “super-champions” by the index, show either continuous improvement or year-upon-year stability: Zurich, Oslo, Singapore, Beijing, Seoul and Hong Kong. The 2023 findings also demonstrate the increasing smartness of second-tier cities like Montreal, Denver, Lausanne and Bilbao.
Some 20,000 citizens were surveyed about 15 aspects of living in their cities. They were asked which were the most urgent, from affordable housing and road congestion to fulfilling employment and green spaces. They were also asked about various structures and technologies in a bid to determine whether tech-based solutions are addressing their major concerns.
Finally, they were asked how comfortable they felt with technologies such as face recognition and sharing personal data to improve traffic congestion.
“The global landscape of smart cities is changing,” said IMD’s Bruno Lanvin, president of the Smart City Observatory. “Cities and their leaders are becoming more visible on the international stage, and citizens are increasingly valuing inclusion and diversity in the places they choose to live.”
IMD reports the index can serve as a valuable benchmark for progress on openness, innovation, inclusivity and sustainability. “A new world is shaping up, and changes at the city level are a precious indicator of what the future may hold. Openness and inter-city collaboration may become key components of the next wave of globalisation,” said Lanvin.
This year, the Seoul-based World Smart Sustainable Cities Organisation (WeGo) is partnering with IMD to formally recognise efforts in smart city development by awarding a new prize, the Seoul Smart City Prize, in September. WeGo is a membership-based international association of local governments, smart tech solution providers, and institutions committed to the transformation of cities into smart, sustainable cities.
The prize is designed to promote an innovative and inclusive smart city model that looks after underprivileged groups in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Among the 141 cities studied in the index – which is 20 per cent more than in the 2019 edition – 26 of WeGo’s member cities were evaluated.
“IMD’s Smart City Observatory and WeGo are making great strides towards this becoming the leading smart city index and providing support to cities across the globe. The index opens access to WeGo’s network of member cities towards enhanced city assessment and contributes to future research and development,” said secretary general of WeGo, Jung Sook Park.
This year’s index reflects citizens’ real experience of living where they do courtesy of the directly sourced city-level data from the Global Data Lab’s Human Development Index (HDI), used instead of country-level data. It measures life expectancy, expected years of schooling and the mean years of education completed, as well as the per capita income of a city’s citizens.
IMD is an independent academic institution based in Lausanne and Singapore, founded 75 years ago by business leaders for business leaders.
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Quelle/Source: Smart Cities World, 04.04.2023
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