Evaluation on new first-tier smart cities in China based on entropy method and TOPSIS

Overload of infrastructure, shortages in energy resources and environmental pollution constitute the main challenges facing current urban management and development. As the best solution to these challenges, smart cities enjoy increasing attention around the world. As China speeds up the urbanization process, the number of pilot smart cities in China continues to increase. Under such a context, it is of great significance to arrange effective and comprehensive evaluations on the construction level of these smart cities. Based on the development realities of cities in China, this study arranged an in-depth analysis of the current literature and policies and established an evaluation system with five dimensions and 30 indicators. The entropy method and TOPSIS (technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution) were comprehensively applied to evaluate 15 new first-tier cities in China. The study results demonstrated that these 15 new first-tier cities still had a relatively low smart level, and the gaps among different cities were significant. Because of the differences in the emphasis of the smart city construction of various cities, their performances under different dimensions were widely divergent. Among the five dimensions, smart infrastructure, economy and life had poor performance compared with smart governance and the environment. In addition, some recommendations were initiated to boost the construction of smart cities in China, including accelerated construction for new infrastructure, more emphasis on the digital economy, acceleration in the development of important mechanisms, etc.