One of the most prominent centres for banking and finance across the world, the Swiss city of Zurich has been named as the smartest city in the 2024 Smart City Index by Swiss business school Institute for Management Development (IMD). Singapore, placed 5th globally, is Asia’s highest ranked city.
The city-state moved two spots in 2024 after maintaining its 7th position in 2020, 2021, and 2023.
The others in the top 5 comprise Oslo in Norway, Australia’s Canberra, and fellow Swiss city Geneva, in the respective order.
What was the methodology used in the rankings?
As per the IMD website, 142 cities were accessed based on five key areas: Health and safety, Mobility, Activities, Opportunities, and Governance.
IMD captured the perceptions of 120 residents in each city during the activity. “The final score for each city is computed by using the perceptions of the last three years of the survey, with the weight of 3:2:1 for 2024:2023:2021,” the website read.
“There are two pillars for which perceptions from residents are solicited: the Structures pillar, referring to the existing infrastructure of the cities, and the Technology pillar, describing the technological provisions and services available to the inhabitants,” it added.
Further, the cities were distributed into four groups based on the Global Data Lab’s Human Development Index (HDI) score of the city they are part of. “Within each HDI group, cities are assigned a ‘rating scale’ (AAA to D) based on the perceptions-score of a given city compared to the scores of all other cities within the same group. For group 1 (highest HDI quartile), scale AAA–AA–A–BBB– BB. For group 2 (second HDI quartile), scale A–BBB– BB–B– CCC. For group 3 (third HDI quartile), scale BB–B– CCC–CC–C. For group 4 (lowest HDI quartile), scale CCC–CC–C–D,” the institute said.
No US cities in top 20
European and Asian countries dominated the overall chart and also the list for top 20 cities. No cities from the United States of America, however, featured in the first 20 smartest cities list.
As per Bruno Lanvin, president of IMD’s Smart City Observatory, the upcoming elections is the US is likely to have made citizens more critical of what needs to be improved, affecting the rankings.
Copenhagen in Denmark (6th), Lausanne in Switzerland (7th), UK capital London (8th), Finnish capital Helsinki (9th) and Abu Dhabi in the UAE make the top 10 list.
Apart from Singapore, other Asian nation in the top 20 are: Beijing, China (13th), Taipei City, Taiwan (16th), Seoul, South Korea (17th), Shanghai, China (19th) and Hong Kong (20th).
Delhi smarter than Mumbai, Bangalore
Only four Indian cities feature in the coveted list. However, none of the cities are placed within the top 100. India’s capital city New Delhi (106th) has been deemed more smart than Financial Capital Mumbai (107th) and Tech Capital Bangalore (109th). Hyderabad (111th) is the fourth Indian city named in the list.
China has most smart cities amongst Asian countries
As per IMD, 28 Asian cities have made it to the list. About 35 percent of those cities belong to China. Ten Chinese cities found itself enlisted. Apart from capital Beijing, and Shanghai, Tianjin (54th), Zhuhai (58th), Shenzhen (60th), Nanjing (62nd), Hangzhou (64th), Guangzhou (65th), Chongqing (82nd) and Chengdu (93rd) also feature in the list.
Which are the other Asian cities?
Busan, South Korea (45th), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (73rd), Bangkok, Thailand (84th), Tokyo, Japan (86th), Osaka, Japan (95th), Hanoi, Vietnam (97th), Jakarta, Indonesia (103rd), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (105th), Makassar, Indonesia (115th), Manila, Philippines (121st).