Paris is the smartest (capital) city in Europe, apparently. So says smart cities new research by Swedish real-estate tech firm ProptechOS, which has evaluated 23 European capitals on a number of tech-related scores, garnered from OECD ratings for civic ‘smartness’, and found the French capital to be the best of the bunch. It finished ahead of London and Amsterdam, in second and third, respectively. “Paris ranks the highest in Europe among cities best prepared for a smart city future,” it said. London ranked top the last time ProptechOS ran the numbers.
Berlin, Madrid, Lisbon, Stockholm, Luxembourg, Dublin, and Copenhagen rounded out the top 10.
As with its US smart-city review, ProptechOS analysed 16 equally-weighted metrics (on a 0-100 scale) across three categories promoted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): connectivity and infrastructure, environmental sustainability, and the local tech job market. The analysis was conducted last month (April 2024), and ranks cities by their total score across the 16 measures. Paris scored 76.4 out of 100 – which is marginally higher, incidentally, than the 75.7/100 achieved by Seattle, the top-ranked US smart city.
Paris has Europe’s highest capital 5G coverage (99.9 percent), second-highest number of AI companies (532), the third-highest number of free Wi-Fi hotspots (10,663), the third highest number of IoT companies, and the fifth-highest broadband speeds (173.06 Mbps, on average), reckons the study. It is also “known” for its smart traffic management systems, which monitor noise levels, air quality, and other environmental factors. As such, it knocked its connectivity and infrastructure test out of the park, scoring 91.8/100 – compared with London, on 79.9 percent.
The review of tech infrastructure included eight measures: free Wi-Fi hotspots, broadband speeds, 5G coverage, AI companies (in total and per capita), IoT companies (in total and per capita of 100,000), and also how many airports.
Paris also scored well (89.1/100; joint-top with Lisbon) for tech jobs – a category that was scored on the number of jobs advertised, in total and per capita (again, per 100,000). ProptechOS stated: “While Paris has over twice as many tech jobs as Lisbon…, the Portuguese capital ranks more favourably for tech jobs per 100,000 people, with 130 versus Paris’s 62.” Lisbon’s “favourable government and tax incentives” were cited as reasons for its growth as a tech hub. It has “some of the world’s highest numbers of developers and engineers per capita,” apparently.
The other category, green infrastructure and sustainability, saw Amsterdam place highest (75.4/100). Green infrastructure was measured on six counts: particle pollution (PM2.5) and air quality, tree loss, tree gain, EV charging points (in total and per capita), and LEED-certified green buildings. Amsterdam aims to become the first European city to hit zero CO2 emissions by 2050. It has more green-certified buildings (553) than any other city in the index and the most EV charging stations relative to its population size (67 per 100,000 people). Full-time scores are below.
Note, this article goes with a parallel entry about the smartest cities in the US. For context, it is worth reading that article first. It is available here.
