Celebrating the world’s leading Smart City Governments
Over half of the planet now lives in cities with more than two-thirds of the world’s population will be urbanized by 2050, making it ever more imperative that governments worldwide understand how cities work and leverage their advantages to address the most significant challenges of our time – from managing climate change and overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic, to eradicating poverty, attaining quality education, and protecting habitats.
Smart Cities have emerged as urban ecosystems that integrate digital technology, knowledge, and assets to become more responsive to users, improve city services, and make cities more loveable. We believe successful and effective city leadership hinges upon leaders’ exposure to innovative solutions to overcome the challenges of financing smart city development, maintaining a strong citizen and impact orientation, developing effective policy tools, and introducing city-wide initiatives, which are being adopted in other urban environments around the world.
We seek to catalyse smart cities that are more inclusive, sustainable, and loveable, and believe that governments and city leaders play a key role in realising smart city visions. To achieve this, a holistic approach to smart city development is essential. We outline how cities can approach this in our Smart City Framework below:
The Smart City Governments microsite presented by Eden Strategy Institute aims to support city leaders by offering inspiration from cities worldwide. On this site, you will find our independent ranking of the Top 50 Smart City Governments, published bi-annually, which aims to offer city leaders guidance on assessing the readiness of their governments to develop, facilitate, or track their smart city initiatives. You will also find insights covering a range of urban issues, including the future of mobility, environmental sustainability in cities, trust and data governance, smart city financing, and more in the form of reports, articles, and case studies. Smart City innovations offer mayors across the world a promising new way of engaging citizens and increasing quality of life and we hope that this resource will be an effective companion in your smart city journey.
