Global Smart Cities 2022 - Digital Rights & Inclusion

The "Global Smart City" (2022 Edition) was completed by the Smart City Research Group of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in cooperation with the Smart City Research Center of Fudan University's School of Management, with continuous support from the UN Public Administration Network (UNPAN). It was the sixth release of the research outcome of the Smart City Think Tank.

Based on the "5+1" assessment model of smart cities, this report compares the five quantitative indicators of the 20 "smart cities" in the world: smart infrastructure, smart economy, smart services, smart governance, and smart innovation; and with a qualitative indicator which is "smart reputation", in a total of six dimensions, trying to set a benchmark for global smart cities and provide diversified solutions for all regions to achieve the sustainable development goal 2030(SDG 2030) proposed by the United Nations in 2015.

This year's report highlights the theme of "digital inclusion" in Smart Cities. Digital inclusion refers to the fact that cities take care of the survival and development of different groups in the process of digital and smart transformation, especially to those vulnerable groups. Digital inclusion embodies the human-oriented spirit and sustainable development spirit of smart cities, which needs the support of digital technology.

The first part of this report is the overall ranking, which classifies the world's smart cities into 3 types as "leading cities", "advanced cities" and "following cities". This year's leading and following cities are the same as last year, and their ranking positions are quite established. But the rankings of the top three leading cities are different from last year: now London is the first, New York is the second and Singapore is the third.

The second part of this report is the analysis of sub-index ranking.

Hong Kong and Singapore rank second in terms of smart infrastructure sub-indicators. Some cities in Europe and the United States followed behind. Among the cities in developing countries, Dubai has performed relatively well.

In the sub-index of smart economy, New York and London are ranked in the top two; Beijing and Shanghai have performed well in this area, entering the first camp.

The smart services sub-index reflects the degree of wisdom in providing services to people. Shanghai and Beijing have performed very well, indicating that China's major cities have already taken the lead in the world in the application of digital technology. Dubai and Singapore came in second.

Los Angeles and London rank second in the smart governance sub-index. Paris and Sydney tied for third place.

In terms of smart innovation sub-indicators, London, Tokyo and Seoul rank in the top three. They have outstanding performance in science and technology, education and innovation, and have abundant human capital.

The smart reputation reflects the attention paid to each big smart city in the academic circle. The results show that Singapore, Beijing and New York rank in the top three. They each have advantages in different aspects of smart city construction and are most favored by academic
circles.