As this year’s report data show, quality of life, safety, mobility and waste management remained high on the list of citizens’ concerns in all parts of the world. However, they did not relegate other emergencies (including climate-related issues) to the back burner. Health-related emergencies have had dire consequences on cities and on their populations. A new normal has been defined for cities. It is now becoming clear that a significant part of the new habits created will not fade away after the pandemic. Teleworking and online meetings became the norm, and those who had the opportunity started to flee large cities and operate from less densely populated areas. City centres emptied almost overnight, while traffic was reduced to a small proportion of its previous levels. One of the most visible aspects of the pandemic has been that of lock-down measures affecting shops, restaurants, entertainment locations, and work places. Such global concerns are bound to have sizeable consequences on cities. In many respects, on the contrary, they have taken an emergency dimension. During the same time, other global challenges (climate change, inequalities) have not abated. The warnings that emerged from last year’s report also remain very much with us a year later: the health crisis might very well be only a harbinger for other challenges for cities around the world, including social and economic ones. This remains true at the time of launching this latest edition (October 2021). Last year, we wrote in the preface to the same report that it was still too early to draw conclusions from the lessons of the pandemic and of its effects on smart cities. Preface Welcome to the third edition of the IMD-SUTD Smart City Index Report. “Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”
“What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open.”Ĭharles Baudelaire, Mademoiselle Bistouri
Smart City Index 2021 A tool for action, an instrument for better lives for all citizens.
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