Stockholm maintained its No. 1 ranking in the Networked Society City Index for 2014 while Paris replaced Singapore as No. 3. Rounding out the top five cities were London (No. 2) and Copenhagen (No. 5). Berlin; Munich; Barcelona, Spain; Athens, Greece; Rome; Warsaw, Poland; Muscat, Oman; and Abu Dhabi and Dubai, United Arab Emirates were added to the City Index in 2014, bringing the total number of cities to 40.
Monika Byléhn, Networked Society Evangelist and driver of City Life at Ericsson, explains the importance of ICT in the development of cities: “Today, we are seeing so many new opportunities which are more or less provided by ICT. The way that cities are led is increasingly built on ICT to provide efficiency and innovation, in basically all areas of a city, from health care to transport to utilities.”
Compare top five cities using interactive tool
“Cities will be the major arena in which ICT can bring solutions for economic, social, and sustainable growth” said Patrik Regårdh, head of Ericsson’s Networked Society Lab.
In its fifth year, the Networked Society City Index is published by Ericsson’s Networked Society Lab. The aim of the Index is to measure the performance of cities from two perspectives: their ICT maturity and their sustainable urban development over the triple bottom line.
ICT maturity represents 20 different data points broken down into three categories designed to capture the complexity of the network society. These three categories and representative sub-categories include:
- Infrastructure: A well-developed infrastructure
- Broadband quality
- Availability
- Affordability: A competitive market that offers affordable prices to citizens and businesses
- Tariffs
- IP Transit prices
- Usage: Sufficient know-how to invent, adopt and adapt new ICT solutions
- Technology use
- Individual use
- Public and market use
Triple bottom line is broken down into three categories, which represent the following three dimensions of sustainable development:
- Social
- Health
- Education
- Social inclusion
- Crime rates
- Unemployment
- Economy
- Current productivity via GDP
- Human capital
- Tech sector size around important aspects for the future
- Competitiveness
- Environment
- Resources
- Pollution
- Climate change
According to World Health Organization, the urban population in 2014 accounted for 54% of the total global population, up from 34% in 1960. The urban population growth, in absolute numbers, is concentrated in the less-developed regions of the world. It is estimated that by 2017, even in less-developed countries, a majority of people will be living in urban areas.
For the first time in history, the majority of the world’s population lives in urban areas. The Networked Society City Index report points to need for collaboration, individual leadership, a redefinition of GDP and ICT as key to addressing the complex and complicated issues, most notably health risk, arising from continued urbanization.
