An assessment framework of global smart cities for sustainable development in a post-pandemic era

The urgent decline of global progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the post-COVID-19 era necessitates immediate action in the field of smart cities. This paper proposes a new framework to assess the performance of global smart cities, emphasizing the vitality and potential of sustainability-oriented smartness for global smart cities, as well as the role of benchmarking cities on a global scale. The framework centered around the principles of “humanity-technology-sustainability” tackles critical challenges related to feasibility, interoperability, and flexibility in smart city assessments. By integrating academic perceptions with quantitative performance results, the proposed framework aims to facilitate the advancement of sustainable smart city through urban comparisons and the expansion of global visions within the smart city ecosystem in a post-pandemic future. In each of the past three years, twenty globally renowned cities for smart city development are assessed under this framework and published on UNPAN (United Nations Public Administration Network) website. These assessments aim to draw the attention of more cities to the factors that contribute to advancing smart cities under the new world development goals, to identify benchmark cities across different dimensions, and to assist decision-makers in prioritizing future smart city development initiatives.