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Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research

Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research

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Peer-reviewed publication

A typology of smart city assessment tools and indicator sets

There has been a surge of interest over the past several years in the development and implementation of tools, frameworks, and indicator sets (hereafter, ‘schemes’) for smart city assessment. This indicates the growing recognition of the significance of assessment schemes to better inform planning and design of sustainable, smart, and resilient cities. Despite this, there has been little examination of the typology and structure of assessment schemes. This gap has been partially addressed in a recent study by Sharifi (2019) that examines strengths and weaknesses of selected assessment schemes in terms of issues such as coverage of different smartness dimensions, stakeholder engagement, context sensitivity, alignment with city vision and strategic needs, uncertainty management, addressing interlinkages and interoperabilities between smart city indicators, dealing with temporal dynamism issues, flexibility, feasibility, presentation and communication of the results, and using assessment results to inform action plans. To build on and complement that study, this paper examines thirty-four schemes to contribute to a better understanding of their typology. It provides general information related to characteristics such as geographic focus, scale of analysis, target audience, and the method of development. In addition, it identifies format, thematic focus areas, and persistent indicators across the schemes and provides detailed information on the major methods and approaches used for assessing city smartness. Results show that diverse approaches have been taken, but there are also some commonalities. Index is the dominant format across the schemes and the most common themes are: economy, people, governance, environment, mobility, living, and data. This typology study can be used for multiple purposes; it can serve as a frame of reference for those aiming at evaluating performance of smart cities using appropriate schemes, can be used as a basis for conducting further critical analyses of assessment schemes, and may also guide the development of better-informed schemes in the future.