Smart Cities, Sustainability, and Quality of Life – A Comparison of Indexes and the Indicators They Include

This paper compiles and organizes indexes of (1) what makes a city smart, (2) Sustainability, and (3) Quality of Life and examines the application of these indexes in 67 smart city initiatives around the world. There is no consensus on what it means to be a Smart City, yet many cities are adopting S...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: João Vitor Souza Teixeira, Renata Maria Abrantes Baracho Porto, Dagobert Soergel
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2022
Country:Brasil
Institution:Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)
Repository:Repositório Institucional da UFMG
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.ufmg.br:1843/60040
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.54808/JSCI.20.02.80
http://hdl.handle.net/1843/60040
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8335-9646
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Smart City
Sustainability
Indicadores
Smart City Indicators
Smart Buildings
Planejamento Urbano e Regional
Ciência da Informação
Cidades Inteligentes
Sustentabilidade
Description
Summary:This paper compiles and organizes indexes of (1) what makes a city smart, (2) Sustainability, and (3) Quality of Life and examines the application of these indexes in 67 smart city initiatives around the world. There is no consensus on what it means to be a Smart City, yet many cities are adopting Smart City initiatives. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are the common denominator. But smart cities should evolve not only in technology but also in sustainable development (measured by UN goals and by indexes such as ISO 37.120:2014) that supports good quality of life (measured by an Urban Quality of Life (UQoL) index, such as the Human Development Index (HDI)). Measuring the smartness of a city requires a complex index. To determine the sub-indexes/themes and the indicators such an index should include, we analyzed seven indexes: two for sustainability, two for the quality of life, and three for smart cities and compared the sub-indexes/themes they include. Then we surveyed the websites of 67 smart city initiatives to see for each sub-index/theme how many smart city initiatives considered it. The themes that appeared in the highest number of indexes were also most frequent in smart city initiatives; cities tackle the same problems of society.