Singapore’s achievements have gotten increasingly impressive as town climbed two places to develop into the one Asian city to be ranked among the many world’s top five smartest cities in 2024. In fifth place, Singapore overtook the likes of Beijing, Taipei and Seoul, in keeping with the index released on April 9.
Singapore scored high on the list with strong public safety, an efficient public transport system, basic sanitation that meets standards for essentially the most deprived areas and reduced waiting times for online identification processes. However, Singaporeans highlighted their most pressing priorities, including reasonably priced housing (77%), job creation (50%) and combating unemployment (48%).
Singapore led the worldwide rating from 2019 to 2021 before falling to seventh place in 2023. The index was not released in 2022 as researchers refined the methodology, an IMD statement released on April 11 said.
In addition to Singapore, several other Asian cities made it into the highest 20, including Beijing in thirteenth place, Taipei in sixteenth place, Seoul in seventeenth place, Shanghai in nineteenth place and Hong Kong in twentieth place.
The Smart City Index, now in its fifth 12 months, is published by the Institute for Management Development (IMD), a Swiss business school. The 2024 report was developed in partnership with the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organisation, a world association of local governments, high-tech providers and other institutions.
This annual assessment evaluates 142 cities based on their ability to adopt technology to enhance the lives of residents. In this 12 months’s assessment, researchers used objective data and survey responses from residents to rank these cities out of 142 assessed.
The IMD said it interviewed 120 residents from each city to collect information on issues resembling traffic congestion, the impact of free public Wi-Fi on access to city services, and the supply and reliability of web connection to fulfill connectivity needs.
The IMD revealed that for the primary time, it has been in a position to calculate a mean movement, reflecting a city’s overall position within the previous index. Based on this recent approach, the IMD has classified several cities into what it calls “super champions” and “fast-moving challengers.” The IMD said these cities have shown consistency, never experiencing a drop of their average rankings over the past three years.
In addition, the variety of cities from Asia and Europe that made it into the index’s top 20 increased. The index also noted that cities in North America, resembling Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Ottawa and Montreal, reportedly lost out within the competition.
Here is the list of the 20 smartest cities in keeping with the Smart Cities Index 2024:
- Zurich
- Oslo
- Canberra
- Geneva
- Singapore
- Copenhagen
- Lausanne
- London
- Helsinki
- Abu Dhabi
- Stockholm
- Dubai
- Beijing
- Hamburg
- Prague
- Taipei City
- Seoul
- Amsterdam
- Shanghai
- Hong Kong
