Manila drops 10 notches in 2020 Smart City Index

MANILA, Philippines — Concerns on road congestion, poor public transport services, air pollution and corruption weighed down on Manila’s “smart city” ranking this year, as it finished as the sixth worst city worldwide.

Manila fell 10 notches to 104th out of 109 cities worldwide in the 2020 Smart City Index published by the Institute for Management Development in collaboration with Singapore University for Technology and Design.

The Smart City Index ranks cities based on economic and technological data, as well as by their citizens’ perceptions of how “smart” their cities are.

Hundreds of citizens from 109 cities were surveyed in April and May 2020 and asked questions on the technological provisions of their city across key areas such as health and safety, mobility, activities, opportunities and governance.

Last year, Manila ranked 94th out of 102 cities, or the ninth worst globally, in the first edition of the Smart City Index report.

This year, it managed to outperform only five cities: Rabat, Cairo, Abuja, Nairobi and Lagos.

Manila also continues to fall behind its Asian peers with Singapore ranking first globally, Taipei at 8th, Hong Kong 32nd, Seoul 47th, Kuala Lumpur 54th, Bangkok 71st, Hanoi 84th and Jakarta 94th.

Christos Cabolis of IMD Business School Switzerland and Singapore said most of Manila’s citizens surveyed indicated road congestion, corruption in public administration, high level of air pollution and reduced availability of health services as key issues that they believe should be better addressed by the local authorities.

“Residents in Manila consistently identified air pollution, road congestion and unsatisfactory public transport services as major problems, while often also highlighting corruption of public officials. These elements majorly contributed to the drop in the ranking of the city in this year Smart City index,” Cabolis said in an email.

“Furthermore, the Smart City index also measures the quality of life of the citizens via the Human Development Index (a composite index produced by the United Nations) in its assessment. This indicator showed a decline in a number of Asian cities this year. As quality of life rises one would expect to see the concerns of citizens evolving and an improvement in the rankings,” he said.

Cabolis said Manila citizens, on the other hand, expressed satisfaction in areas related to the availability of business, work and education opportunities in the city.

He said residents were also satisfied with the possibilities offered by e-government services such as online services provided by the city to start a new business more easily and an improved online processing of documents with the local administration.

Singapore again topped this year’s rankings, followed by Helsinki and Zurich. Completing the top 10 are Auckland, Oslo, Copenhagen, Geneva, Taipei, Amsterdam and New York.

In Southeast Asia, the Smart City Index report said the diverse performance of cities in the region is rooted in the different levels of both economic development and technological infrastructure.

“For instance, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur enjoy basic and technological infrastructure superior to those available in Makassar, Ho Chi Min City, or Manila,” it said.

Such structural differences, it said, have been exacerbated in citizen’s perceptions about the smartness of their city during the COVID pandemic.

“Cities that could rely on reliable networks and services managed to better address and satisfy the needs of their citizens compared to those lacking such ecosystems,” the report said.