Smart and sustainable cities in the European Union. An ex ante assessment of environmental, social, and cultural domains.

The aim of the paper is to define a set of smartness and sustainability indicators applicable to European cities and to assess their outcome in an ex-ante perspective with regard to the implementation of Europe 2020 strategy. Following the DPSIR (Driving forces, Pressures, State, Impact, Response) model we select a bundle of indicators for three relevant sustainability domains (environmental, social, cultural), which are proper of the smart city definition. Then we define groups of homogeneous cities for each domain by using a two-step cluster analysis. Results show the existence of heterogeneous groups of cities that are likely to become smart in the cultural domain, side by side to groups of more developed urban areas that have acquired a substantial advantage in the environmental and social dimensions.