Urban smartness and sustainability in Europe. 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 and cultural), which are proper to 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 with groups of more developed urban areas that have acquired a substantial advantage in the environmental and social dimensions.