Evaluation of major cities in terms of smart cities: A developing country perspective

Abstract

Today, slightly more than half of the people live in urban areas and this rate is increasing over the years. The enormously rising population in cities brings with it numerous problems that need to be deeply addressed. New approaches are required in solving many issues such as the management of scarce resources in the city, and the access of city residents to clean air and water. The smart city concept, which freshly emerged with the approach of adapting advanced technological facilities to city administrations, may be able to assist to cope with these problems. The levels of embracement and implementation of the smart city concept play a fundamental role in the well-being of people living in urban areas. Measuring smart city performances, especially in metropolitan cities, can guide the management of local or national investments to improve society's quality of life. In this study, the smart city performance assessment of 30 metropolitan municipalities in Türkiye using a two-stage methodology is included. The scores of smart city index indicators determined by the literature review for Türkiye were calculated using MEthod based on the Removal Effects of Criteria (MEREC), which is a recent multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach. In the second part of the methodology, 30 metropolitan municipalities were ranked based on weighted criteria using another MCDM approach Measurement Alternatives and Ranking according to the COmpromise Solution (MARCOS). The methodology is compared with different MCDM approaches. As a result of the study, it has been revealed that the best city according to the methodology is İstanbul. Also, Antalya, İzmir and Konya have also been among the prominent cities with high smart city scores. The aim of this study is to contribute to the analysis of the issues where the investment should be focused on by measuring the smart city performances of metropolitan cities.