Measuring the Standardized Definition of 'smart city': A Proposal on Global Metrics to Set the Terms of Reference for Urban 'smartness'

摘要

Since the end of 2014 a definition on "smart cities" agreed by international standardization bodies exists. As commonly said in the business community, 'measurement is the first step leading to control and eventually to improvement. If you can't measure something, yo can't understand it. If you can't understand it, you can't control it. If you can't control it, you can't improve it' (H. James Harrington). Therefore, if we want to understand what the smart cities initiative is all about we have to start measuring its brand new definition. After that we'll be able to monitor and control the performance of cities in terms of smartness, and this will lead to the possibility of improvement. In this research we present a set of indicators that specifically serve to measure the newly agreed and acknowledged international definition on smart cities. This set of indicators will be now tested to measure the smartness of the city of Girona, a small-medium sized city in Spain. At the completion of this pilot we'll be able to design an index summarizing the set (or subsets) of indicators, as a future steps of this research. A summarizing index will help to get an overview and to understand the overall performance of a city in terms of smartness. Then, targeted actions should be undertaken according to the results revealed by the specific indicators so that the overall smartness can be improved.