In 2017, Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet company, announced plans to build a data-driven neighborhood on 12 acres of Toronto’s waterfront. The proposal was ambitious: autonomous delivery robots, sensor networks, heated sidewalks, and a digital layer managing the neighborhood from “the internet up.” At public consultations, residents were given a 1,500-page plan and asked for feedback. One community organizer captured the underlying sentiment succinctly: “They have come up with a project that no one in Toronto has asked them to come up with. It became clear that the project was not simply misaligned with local needs. It was built in reverse. The starting point was available technology, not the actual challenges identified by residents. The result was a technically sophisticated solution in search of a use case.” The project was abandoned in 2020.
This is not an isolated story. It reflects a broader and persistent gap between the urban ambitions of authorities and the lived experience of residents. Cities invest in infrastructure, digital platforms, and services with the best intentions of improving daily life. And yet, these investments do not always translate into outcomes that residents recognize, value, or trust. It is precisely the gap that the IMD Smart City Index (SCI), published by the World Competitiveness Center, is designed to capture.
The SCI does not assess cities from the outside; it does not rely on expert panels, infrastructure data, or government-reported statistics. Instead, to date, it is based on approximately 400 resident responses across 148 cities in 2026. The underlying questions are simple: does the city around you work for you? Do the systems, services, and technologies you encounter in daily life address the challenges you face?
This is a deliberate methodological choice, and it challenges a deeply embedded assumption in urban policy: that technological deployment by itself reliably translates into better outcomes for residents. When residents of a city report strong performance in governance and digital services, it is not just an expression of opinion but evidence that systems are working as expected. When residents are more critical, despite substantial investment, that gap is not a measurement error. It is the most important signal a city can receive.
The 2026 results make this signal clear. Across all 148 cities surveyed, performance in the Structures pillar, which captures institutional effectiveness and citizen participation, is a stronger and more consistent predictor of overall smart city performance than Technology. Almost every city in the bottom 20 scores higher in Technology than Structures.
The reverse is true among top-performing cities. Zurich, Oslo, Geneva, and Copenhagen do not necessarily lead because they are the most technologically advanced in absolute terms. Their advantage lies in residents’ experience of governance as transparent, responsive, and reliable. Trust comes first. Technology follows.
For cities where investment and perception diverge, the most actionable insight the Index generates is not the ranking itself, but the gap it reveals.
For cities where investment and perception diverge, the most actionable insight the Index generates is not the ranking itself, but the gap it reveals. Every gap between investment and perception is diagnostic. It is not noise – it is the signal. When a city invests in infrastructure, digital services, or public programs, but residents do not perceive an improvement in the quality of life, this divergence typically reflects one of two underlying problems, both within a city’s control.
The first is a delivery failure. The investment exists, but it does not reach residents in a meaningful way. A hospital may have been built, but it serves the wrong population, lacks relevant services, or is inaccessible in practice. A digital platform may exist, but it is designed for a tech-literate user with reliable connectivity rather than the diversity of residents who need it. In such cases, the solution addresses a problem, but not the one residents are experiencing.
The second is a communication failure. Here, the investment is effective and relevant, but residents do not recognize it, trust it, or associate it with the city’s efforts. The issue is not delivery but legibility. The city has acted but has not made its efforts visible or credible to the people it serves.
The distinction is critical because the policy response differs fundamentally. Delivery failures require redesign, that is, returning to residents, identifying actual needs, and rebuilding solutions accordingly. Communication failures require transparency, engagement, and trust-building. Without that distinction, cities risk investing more while achieving less.
The 2026 results illustrate both dynamics. Athens, ranked 139th, and Rome, ranked 143rd, are high-income, well-connected cities with significant public infrastructure. Yet both record low scores in areas such as perceived corruption and citizen participation – in some cases, lower than those with fewer resources. Residents do not experience these cities as working effectively for them, or at least do not perceive them as doing so. Whether this reflects delivery failures, communication failures, or both, the implication is the same: perception is the signal, and ignoring it carries a cost.
The Smart City Index provides a ranking, but its most important contribution is analytical.
The Smart City Index provides a ranking, but its most important contribution is analytical. It asks, consistently each year and across cities at different stages of development, whether what is built is experienced as valuable by those who live with it.
For city leaders, the relevant question is not simply “where do we rank?” but “do our residents experience what we build as solving the problems they actually face?” When a gap emerges, the next question is: is this a failure of delivery, or a failure of communication? This is a strategic distinction. Cities that misdiagnose the gap risk directing scarce resources toward solutions that do not improve lived experiences.
In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961, the urban theorist Jane Jacobs wrote, “There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.” Jacobs did not have access to global indices or structured datasets. But her intuition remains precise. Cities do not succeed because they are technologically advanced, but when people recognize themselves in the systems built around them.
Data now allows us to identify – systematically and comparably – when that alignment holds and when it does not. The implication is clear: diagnose the gap and respond accordingly. Where delivery fails, redesign. Where awareness is low or trust is weak, engage.
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