Elements of Thriving Switzerland’s Smart Cities

Despite many international or national push for smart city development, it is the local context, constraint and enablers in a specific municipality that determines the degree of innovation a city will have.  A study examines 22 smart cities in Switzerland to find out what elements of a city that are significant in the development of its Smart City vision. This study found three spatial and socio-economic configuration of a localised city process that contributes to the growth of the smart city. 

First, cities with a higher number of public services are more likely to create environment that make smart city flourish. With large number of services such as banking, communication, trade, retail, healthcare and education, the city is more likely to be open and adopt advance ICT infrastructure that boost the digitalisation process and the city demand for innovation. Smart city also seems to thrive in cities with many universities which is strongly tied with the city ability to pursue the knowledge economy. Lastly, more imperative the population number, it is the density of urban population that suggests the success of a smart city in Switzerland, Duygan et al. (2022) indicate that the municipality’s in Switzerland has strong authoritative power despite their population size, thus, enabling the local authority to initiate and realise smart city project.

Reference:

Duygan, M., Fischer, M., Pärli, R., & Ingold, K. (2022). Where do Smart Cities grow? The spatial and socio-economic configurations of smart city development. Sustainable Cities and Society, 77, 103578.