Smart cities in Italy: measuring smartness for sustainable urban development of Italian municipalities

Urbanisation is accelerating globally, with 70% of the population expected to reside in cities by 2050, presenting significant challenges for sustainable urban planning. Smart cities provide potential solutions by integrating digital technologies, participatory governance, and innovative strategies to tackle urban issues such as climate change, inequality, and quality of life. In Italy, smart city development gained institutional momentum in 2012 with the National Smart Communities Plan and the Italian Digital Agenda, which established objectives for urban smart transitions, including mobility, environment, economy, security, citizen participation, and digital services. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan has further emphasised the importance of smart cities, framing their development as an ongoing process supported by targeted measures. Building on this premise, this study examines the smart city phenomenon in Italy by developing a composite Smartness Index for Italian municipalities. Existing measures emphasise infrastructure development and digitalisation, but dimensions more focused on social and environmental aspects are often overlooked. In addition, measures are often defined only for the most populous municipalities (usually provincial capitals), neglecting smaller municipalities, which constitute the majority in Italy (according to data from the 2021 ISTAT Census, municipalities with a population of less than 5000 inhabitants represent $$70\%$$ of all Italian municipalities). To address these gaps, this research proposes a new index by exploiting the Structural Equation Modelling framework. Building on the existing literature, the core dimensions of smartness are identified, and a composite measure is derived from selected indicators. Furthermore, by using spatial analysis tools, the work examines the territorial heterogeneity of the phenomenon, mapping results at the municipal level to provide deeper insights into the dynamics of smart city development in Italy.