Smart City Index: Zurich and Geneva are world leaders
The Smart City Index was created by the Swedish company EasyPark. It awards user-friendly, livable cities around the connected globe.
The Smart City Index was created by the Swedish company EasyPark, which primarily makes money in the smart parking business. They have compiled a short list of 100 cities, allegedly evaluating "outputs" from around 20,000 journalists.
The world's cities should become more livable, i.e. smarter. At least, that is the promise of all those who want to design smart cities. Zurich and Geneva are already among the most livable cities in the world, as city rankings repeatedly underline. How do the two fare in the current "Smart City Index 2017"? Well ahead in the global rankings: Zurich in fourth place and Geneva in ninth. However, all things considered, they also show weaknesses. The situation is really bad when it comes to direct democracy and citizen participation in collective projects:
Geneva is ranked 88th, just ahead of Moscow but far behind the cocaine capital of the world, Medellin. The same applies to Zurich (86th). They are also far behind in the traffic context (Geneva 44th, Zurich 56th). In the area of 4G LTE, Geneva is at least ranked 19th, but Zurich only 63rd. In terms of Internet speed, Geneva is also far ahead of Zurich with a ranking of 14th (66). In two other aspects of digitization, Zurich and Geneva are found in the lower midfield.
In terms of traffic, wifi use or 5G, the cities of Zurich and Geneva are in the lower positions, according to the authors of the Smart City Index. However, the latter is somehow relative from a smartness perspective. Not all areas of life have to be analyzed.
