Factors of Successful Development of Smart Cities

The increase in the number of large cities and the size of their population sharpens attention to the new role of cities as entities to ensure a high-quality, safe and modern life of citizens, which has become significantly more active in recent years. The rapid spread of smart cities in the modern world has actualized the issue of analyzing their success and assessing the role of various factors in this. Every success of a smart city is always the result of a unique combination of the most modern technologies, environmental and social initiatives, skillful and consistent management, as well as available human potential. The purpose of the article is to analyze the success factors of smart cities based on the generalization of the results of the most famous ratings. In order to identify the impact of various factors, primarily intellectual, on the success and leadership positions of smart cities, the following ratings were consistently analyzed: Smart City Index (SCI), City in Motion Index (CIMI), Global Power City Index (GPCI), Global Cities Index (GCI), Global Cities Outlook (GCO). They have a different list of indicators and main pillars (dimensions), but all ratings take into account aspects such as: governance, ICT, mobility, functionality, human capital, etc. The highest correlation coefficient, that is, the strongest linear relationship of the CIMI index was found with such factors as: Human capital, Economy, Governance and Technologies. Summarizing the results of the TOP 20 smart cities according to different ratings allowed us to confirm that the list of leaders is very similar in all ratings. Among those cities that are in the TOP-20 in all five indexes are: London, Sydney and Singapore. There are four indices: New York, Paris, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Berlin, Amsterdam, Melbourne. Achieving leadership positions in smart city rankings is always the result of a combination and synergy of certain factors, and first of all, it is the quality of human capital. The intensity and success of the use of information and communication technologies in locality management processes, city planning and improvement of the city's living conditions depend on it.