Geneva, Apr 4 (EFE).- Bilbao, Madrid, Zaragoza and Barcelona are the four Spanish cities that appear on the list of “smart cities” prepared by the Swiss business school IMD in collaboration with the World Organization of Smart and Sustainable Cities (WeGO).
This ranking, the fourth produced by the center based in Lausanne (Switzerland), brings together 141 cities based on 20,000 surveys of their inhabitants based on fifteen indicators, including housing prices, health services, mobility, safety and environmental pollution.
The top ten places on the list are occupied by Zurich, Oslo, Canberra, Copenhagen, Lausanne, London, Singapore, Helsinki and Geneva.
Bilbao is the Spanish city that occupies the highest position on the list, 27th, although it has dropped four places in the ranking compared to last year.
The aspects most praised by the people of Bilbao were the easy access to cultural activities via the internet, public transport and the city’s green spaces; while the most criticized was the price of housing.
Madrid is the only Spanish city that maintained its position from last year, 37th.
The inhabitants of the capital of Spain value very positively the wide cultural offer of their city, while they are discontent with the traffic, the high prices of the real estate market, corruption, employment, security and health services.
For its part, Zaragoza dropped three places compared to last year to 54th place, with access to housing also being the biggest problem for those surveyed in the Aragonese capital.
The same issue is the main concern of the people of Barcelona together with pollution, corruption, the lack of mechanisms to contribute to local government, security and employment.
As in the other three cities, the cultural offer and the ease of access to it were the most highlighted aspects by the citizens of Barcelona, which occupies 70th place in the IMD list, five positions below the one it occupied in the previous study.
