BOX 1 – Research process and methodology Our approach is based on a detailed starting point for devising this study. picked many other cities besides our analysis of the decisions made by It soon became clear that we would chosen six, and also that the restriction the six smart cities’ governments, as have to narrow our scope to specific of our focus to six cities is a limitation well as on the publications and news cities. To do so, we focused on the of our work. However, covering each stories that appear on the cities’ small set of cities that had received of the world’s smart cities exhaustively official websites. one or more awards in recent years.1 would have required us to develop a Having identified a dozen cities that very different methodology. Moreover, We invite you to take a moment to met this criterion, we discovered a work covering a large number of imagine a person who considers that some of them had already been cities would have required us to use a herself to be a “citizen of the world.” covered in depth by other researchers very large and broad mix of indicators. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, owing to their uniqueness or their That approach might form the basis of she is stuck in one place, but she status as trailblazing or world-leading our next research project. is interested in finding out more cities. After setting those cities aside, about the different things cities are we were left with the six cities that After we developed a good understanding doing to meet the urban challenges are examined in this study. Four of the IMD’s work and tools, we decided of tomorrow and the kinds of urban are located in Europe, one in North to supplement the selection of main transformations they anticipate future America, and one in Southeast Asia. dimensions that its ranking uses. We did generations will face. so to ensure that our approach would be To design our study, we first used the consistent with emerging dimensions Unable to travel, our curious virtual list of criteria that IMD Business School that the IMD’s ranking did not fully globetrotter visits the official websites uses to compile its Smart City Index. cover until 2020—for example, citizen of the cities that interest her in order to Second, we compared the different participation and health. find out about their policies and projects. city rankings from the Smart City Index She wants to know: Are the projects with each other. At the same time, we After critically assessing the basic that the sites describe already being conducted a thorough reading of the indicators that the IMD uses to implemented? How focused on the websites and documents that many compile its Smart City Index, we future are they? How are they structured cities now produce on their policies and obtained a list of eighteen dimensions and organized? What messages do projects. Third, we created a shortlist to be used in our analysis of the six the websites emphasize? How are of candidate cities to become the focus smart cities that we selected as case priorities ranked on the websites? What of our case studies. In drawing up the studies. Then, in order to make it time frames have been established shortlist, we chose cities that had easier to offer an overview of each for policy formulation and delivery? already received some form of relevant smart city’s characteristics, we What achievements, work-in-progress award. We then picked six cities from the grouped the dimensions into seven milestones, or completed projects are shortlist as our case studies and refined analytical categories. This framing described? Have any projects been and finalized the set of dimensions that of eighteen dimensions divided revised since they were launched? we would use to analyze those cities’ across seven analytical categories sustainable urban policies. is intended to provide our curious This bottom-up exercise in imagining observer with a reading grid for the how an ordinary person might be We are happy to acknowledge at this six selected cities. curious about smart cities was the early juncture that we could have (1) The IMD Smart City Observatory (SCO) has annually published an index ranking 109 cities. The IMD uses economic and technological data, which it pools with citizens’ perceptions of their cities. In 2017, the IMD started a collaboration with the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) (https://www. imd.org/smart-city-observatory/Home/). The private company 2ThinkNow also produces a ranking of cities. That ranking is based on between two and ten data points that are used to deliver benchmark scores. (https://www.innovation-cities.com/). * https://www.imd.org/smart-city-observatory/smart-city-index/ 7 Quélin and Smadja | HEC PARIS | SMART CITIES | The sustainable program of six leading cities | 2021