Copenhagen ranked the smartest city in the world – Singapore is second

The Danish capital just peeked at the top of the list over smart cities in the world. When it comes to digital evolution and smarter solutions for a city’s citizens, Copenhagen is in the lead. Singapore comes in second, striving to become the world’s first smart nation.
 
Behind the 2017 Smart Cities Index is European parking app EasyPark with the ambition of building more livable cities for the future.
 
It can be hard to determine exactly how to measure a city’s ‘smartness’ – however, research factored elements like the availability of 4G, Wi-Fi hotspots, traffic sensors and car sharing apps. Clean energy, internet speeds, high smartphone usage and excellent online access to governmental services were also considered alongside expert opinion from over 20,000 technology and urban planning journalists.
 
Copenhagen scored the highest particularly because of smart parking, smart building, robust business ecosystems and smartphone penetration. Runners-up Singapore scored the maximum points possible for aspects such as public transport, citizen participation in government services, but fared poorly in things such as traffic, clean energy, and education in governance. Many experts consider Singapore the ultimate smart city though, but as for now, it is only second place.
 
In third, fourth and fifth place, we see the cities of Stockholm, Zurich, and Boston, while Tokyo takes sixth place, being the only other Asian city making it to the top 10.
 
Although Singapore is very advanced in terms of being a smart city, the digitization of everything has made it vulnerable to hackers. Earlier this year, a breach in the internet-connected system of the Ministry of Defense resulted in the theft of personal data of 850 people, though no classified military data was stolen.

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