Cities of the Future Index: 3 European metropolitan areas rank highest

Easy Park has found the world’s 150 most intelligent cities

Technological advancements are allowing cities to create more sustainable futures and better conditions for their residents. While some urban areas are just beginning to delve into the world of digitalisation and innovation, others are already leaders in cutting-edge technology and intelligent solutions.

On 12 October, the parking tech company Easy Park shared that it has developed the Cities of the Future Index to analyse thousands of cities and find out which metropolitan areas are the most intelligent. To conduct this research, Easy Park focused on four key areas: Digital Life, Mobility Innovation, Business Tech Infrastructure, and Environmental Footprint.

To evaluate the Digital Life of a city, researchers analysed the prevalence of tech education, healthcare innovation, and the adoption of technology by both citizens and governments. For the Mobility Innovation area, they looked at traffic management, clean transport, and parking innovation.

Assessing Business Tech Infrastructure, Easy Park investigated the business innovation of cities, internet connectivity, and ePayments. Finally, the company studied the Environmental Footprint of metropolitan areas by collecting data on waste management, climate response, green buildings, and green energy.

Three categories based on population

Understanding that the size of a city’s population can affect its development, Easy Park decided to split its study into 3 categories: Metropolitan areas with populations over 3 million people; Metropolitan areas with populations between 600,000-3 million people; Metropolitan areas with populations between 50,000-600,000 people.

Although thousands of cities were evaluated, only the top 50 in each category ranked in Easy Park’s Index. Taking a closer look at the highest-scoring cities in each group reveals that European cities are leaders in using innovative technology and creating sustainable futures. The top 5 cities in each category can be seen below:

Metropolitan areas with over 3 million residents

1. London
2. New York
3. San Francisco
4. Singapore
5. Berlin

Metropolitan areas with 600,000-3 million residents

1. Copenhagen
2. Stockholm
3. Oslo
4. Amsterdam
5. Zurich

Metropolitan areas with 50,000-600,000 residents

1. Lund
2. Stavanger
3. Espoo
4. Malmo
5. Aalborg

All 150 ‘Cities of the Future’ can be found on easyparkgroup.com.