Zurich, Oslo, and Canberra lead the way as the world’s smartest cities, according to the2023 Smart City Index Report (pdf) released in April by the International Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) and the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization

(WeGO). Zurich has held the top spot in the index every year since the report’s inception in 2019. The Swiss economic capital is followed by Oslo, Norway’s capital, which has also maintained its status from 2021 through 2023. New to the top three, however, is Canberra — the capital of Australia as it enters the ranking for the first time — dethroning London from its previous spot at the helm of the world’s smartest cities.

Beyond the top 3: Other contenders on the top 20 list include Singapore at number 7 (up from number 10 in 2019), Abu Dhabi at number 13 (down one spot from 2021), and Dubai at number 17 (dropping three spots from 2021). Megacities like New York and Cairo are coming in at 21 and 108, respectively, showing that “size is often a handicap rather than an advantage in this regard,” the report notes.

Some regions are smarter than others:While Europe dominates the top 20, along with — to a lesser degree — countries from the Asia Pacific, cities in Africa and the US are essentially absent from any leading spots. However, the data collected suggests that of the 141 cities featured in the report — which are grouped into four categories — those falling within the second group are faring the best in terms of upwards mobility and steady improvements. These include important metropolises like Munich, Montreal, and Mecca.

But what are smart cities? Essentially, a smart city is one that is people-focused. This explains why the latter are also often interchangeably dubbed “citizen-centric cities” and why the index has developed a new methodology to capture that. The report noted that the way smart cities are defined is changing and is therefore reflected in a new methodology introduced by the index in 2023. This change includes the consideration that making cities more inclusive and open to diversity is an indicator of greater wellbeing among residents.

New research approaches: After a year-long hiatus, the document is back with WeGO as a new research partner, includes 20% more cities, and brandishes a new methodology. In 2023, the index collected surveys taken by 120 respondents for each of the 141 cities where the former reflect on how their cities fare in terms of the technologies and structures that underpin 5 key areas that impact quality of life: Health and safety, mobility, cultural activities and green spaces, work and educational opportunities, and governance. Other considerations include determining “priority areas” from a list of 15 indicators such as unemployment, corruption, air pollution, and security. The index has also shifted to include city-level data from the Human Development Index (HDI) of the Global Data Lab in place of country-level data for a more accurate depiction of what life is like beyond the macro national scale.

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