Zurich again crowned as the world’s smartest city

Zurich tops the fifth edition of the IMD Smart City Index, claiming top spot once again ahead of Oslo and Canberra on this occasion. Geneva is ranked fourth, having been down in ninth the previous year. Lausanne has dropped a couple of places and is now ranked in seventh place. For this year’s index, surveys were carried out in 142 cities around the world. The index is compiled on an annual basis by the World Competitiveness Center of the IMD Business School, which is headquartered in Lausanne and Singapore. Over the past few years, the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization, which is based in the South Korean capital city of Seoul, has been cooperating with the index.

Zurich was awarded a Smart City Rating of AAA. It gained the same rating for the Structures sub-group, and a score of AA for the Technologies sub-group. The same criteria with additional sub-items applied to both sub-groups: health & safety, mobility, activities, education and governance, with Zurich scoring well above average practically across the board. Among the 15 priorities, 76.4 percent of the surveyed Zurich residents cited affordable housing, ahead of traffic congestion (58.8 percent) and air pollution (32.2 percent).

This year, Geneva improved its ranking from ninth place to fourth place. With a population of around 200,000 people, the city attained the same ratings as Zurich. In terms of the Structures category group, Geneva performed marginally worse than Zurich, and similarly in the Technologies category group. Among the 15 priorities, a large majority of the surveyed Geneva residents (74 percent) opted for affordable housing ahead of traffic congestion (51.7 percent) and unemployment (43.2 percent).

The first two priorities were also cited in Lausanne (81.2 percent and 58.2 percent respectively). However, the third most-important for Lausanne residents is safety (44.7 percent). Lausanne’s Smart City Rating is AA, the same as that for the Structures sub-group. All categories and sub-points included under Technologies were awarded a combined rating of A.

The greatest improvement was recorded by Riga (+24 to 59th place), followed by Luxembourg (+18 to 27th place) and Vilnius (+18 to 47th place). The sharpest declines were attributable to Bologna (-27 to 78th place), Los Angeles (-18 to 68th place) and Rome (-11 to 133rd place). ce/mm

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