Zagreb Among the Smarter European Cities

According to recently carried out research involving 70 European mid-sized smart cities, Zagreb was ranked in the middle – in 36th place. The cities were ranked according to six different criteria.

In recently carried out research involving mid-sized European smart cities, Zagreb was ranked 36th. The research was carried out by experts from Vienna, Ljubljana and Delft, and the cities were assessed based on six different criteria: smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment and smart living. The research involved 70 cities. One of the prerequisites was having an urban population between 100 thousand and 500 thousand, with a catchment area of less than 1.5 million people.

According to the research, a smart city is a city which performs well in all six characteristics, built on the ‘smart’ combination of endowments and the activities of decisive, independent and aware citizens. For example, in the smart economy category the indicators were an innovative spirit measured by investment in research and development, as well as the rate of employment in sectors requiring a high level of education and the relative number of patent applications.
Luxemburg is at the top of the list of smart European cities, followed by the Danish Aarhus, Aalborg and Odense, and the Finnish Turku and Tampere. Mid-sized Austrian, German and Benelux cities finished very high on the list, whereas cities in the countries that are new European Union members were found more towards the bottom of the list.