Ranking Sustainable Smart City Indicators Using Combined Content Analysis and Analytical Hierarchy Process Techniques

Sustainable Smart Cities have a significant potential to ensure equal access to public services, achieve sustainability and governance transparency, improve livability, and anticipate and mitigate increasingly changing threats. This study aims at prioritizing a core set of Sustainable Smart City (SSC) indicators using a combined methodology: (a) Content Analysis and (b) Analytic Hierarchy Process. The study’s contribution is that it successfully developed a more robust ranking of the above-mentioned set of indicators by combining AHP and co-occurrence analyses. The final combined ranking is intended to serve as a Decision Support Tool to streamline the decision-making process and help decision-makers prioritize dimensions to measure, achieve, or monitor actions when they cannot be undertaken simultaneously in contexts of economic recessions, financial constraints, and resource mobilization challenges. The findings draw attention to the need for considering the concept of SSCs through the prism of interconnecting the various current technology-driven “smart silos” under an inclusive umbrella that focuses on the combinations and connectedness to achieve a systemic approach to sustainability and smartness that none of those single areas can achieve in isolation. The results also revealed an interesting paradox, which relegated the Technology and ICT dimension to the bottom of the ranking, contrary to the widespread consensus and opinion, opening an opportunity for discussion among peers.