There remains a sense that smart cities are a term more beloved of technology vendors than citizens, with various reports showing that citizens have not really reaped the promised benefits yet. That’s not to say such lackluster performance is pervasive, with a new report from the University of Glasgow exploring the smart city landscape to see what set the most advanced cities apart from the rest.
The researchers examined over 5,500 cities around the world before settling on 27 who were leading the way. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of these vanguard cities were capital cities of their respective countries, and as such could be regarded as global cities. The authors believe this global outreach and engagement was vital to the success of their smart city work.