Smart city indicators: Towards exploring potential linkages to disaster resilience abilities

Recent advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have transformed all aspects of human life. Enabled by these advances, over the past few decades, many smart city initiatives have been developed across the world. Subsequently, various efforts have been made to develop indicators and frameworks for the assessment of smart cities. Generally, smart cities are expected to enhance the quality of life and provide solutions to deal with societal challenges. One major societal challenge is the increase in the frequency and intensity of disasters and adverse events. Therefore, smart cities are expected to contribute to enhancing disaster resilience. Integrating resilience thinking into smart city indicators and assessment frameworks is likely to promote better attention to the resilience contributions of smart cities. Against this background, through reviewing the literature, I first introduce a comprehensive list of indicators for assessing city smartness. Multiple indicators related to economy, people, governance, environment, mobility, living and data dimensions of a smart city are listed. Next, I explore if these indicators are aligned with the four resilience abilities: planning, absorption, recovery, and adaptation. Results show that smart city indicators are particularly linked to planning and absorption abilities. More attention to the recovery and adaptation abilities is, therefore, needed.