In today's parlance a "smart" city often refers to a place with a "green" sustainable agenda. Yet this narrow definition of intelligence ignores many other factors--notably upward mobility and economic progress--that have characterized successful cities in the past.
The green-only litmus test dictates cities should emulate either places with less-than-dynamic economies, like Portland, Ore., or Honolulu, or one of the rather homogeneous and staid Scandinavian capitals. In contrast, I have determined my "smartest" cities not only by looking at infrastructure and livability, but also economic fundamentals.
These criteria unfortunately exclude mega-cities like New York, Mexico City, Tokyo or Sao Paulo, which suffer from congenital congestion, out-of-control real estate prices and expanding income disparities--symptoms of what urban historian Lewis Mumford described as "megalopolitan elephantiasis."
Instead, today's "smart" cities tend to be smaller, compact and more efficient: places like Amsterdam; Seattle; Singapore; Curitiba, Brazil; and Monterrey, Mexico. This is not an entirely new notion: Between the 14th and 18th centuries, modest-sized cities like Venice, Italy; Antwerp, Belgium; and Amsterdam nurtured modern capitalism and created canals and vibrant urban quarters that remain wonders even today.
About Curitiba
The south Brazilian city is regarded as an innovator in everything from bus-based rapid transit, used by some 70% of residents, and its balanced, diverse economic development strategy. With a population of 3.5 million, Curitiba demonstrates how to achieve the evolving Brazilian dream without the mass violence, transportation dysfunction and ubiquitous grinding poverty that plague many other Latin American metro areas. The city's program of building "lighthouses"--essentially electronic libraries--for poorer residents has become a model for developing cities world wide. These are among the reasons Reader's Digest recently named Curitiba the best place to live in Brazil.
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