Measuring level of friendliness of smart city: a perceptual study

Abstract

Currently the concept of smart city comes not only at the level of discussion, but some cities have stepped in the stage of implementation. Many of promised benefits will be met for the needs of urban residents if the city applies this concept. Conversely, many professionals and scholars are still in doubt about readiness of a city in the application of this concept. Dimension of friendliness of the real city certainly will have some limitations in a smart city that relies more on interactions with information and communication technology (ICT). This new paradigm becomes background of this paper in viewing the friendliness dimension of a smart city based on city residents’ perceptions. This paper uses case of 2 cities that have different level of readiness in the application of smart city. They are Yogyakarta City and Magelang City, both are located in Central Java. The method applied in this paper is quantitative method based on perceptual answer of respondents structured in a Likert Scale. Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) is then used to look at the attributes of smart city’s dimension which will show the relationship of the level of city friendliness and the level of city readiness in an application of smart city. The result briefly shows that the level of city sensitivity in the application of smart city is very influential in viewing the friendliness of the city. The city that is better equipped to meet the needs of its population according to the dimensions of the smart city based on its existing characteristics has higher friendliness. Time period of applying a smart city concept as the City of Yogyakarta has done longer before Magelang City, is not a guarantee that the city then has a better level of friendliness. The urban citizens have appropriate affective aspect to articulate between what they need and what the city has provided.