Smart cities dynamic performance assessment in China using vertical and horizontal deviation maximization method and driving indicator analysis

With the development of information technology, such as cloud computing and 5G technologies, the construction of smart cities has been an essential part of the city’s long-term development strategy for the 14th five-year plans in China. After a few years of development, the research problem of the dynamic performance assessment of smart cities has been a hot and urgent issue. This paper constructed the dimensions of smart productivity, smart livability, smart governance, and eco-community based on the connotations of smart cities. Then, an indicator system including 35 indicators was built based on the four dimensions. To enlarge the overall differences of the final assessment values, we used the vertical and horizontal deviation maximization (VH-DM) method to measure the performances of 31 smart cities in China from the year 2014–2018. Two essential findings and driving indicators were identified from the assessment results. Firstly, the development among the smart cities was unbalanced and more than half of the smart cities (accounting for 64.52%) were below the average level. The local authorities considered the urban agglomeration strategies to alleviate the problem of unbalanced urban development. Secondly, some smart cities (such as Chongqing) with large scale of population and total resources showed a low level after the total resources were allocated to per capita, which provided a warning for the smart cities to pay more attention to individual development. The local authorities have proposed the high-quality development strategies to deal with such problems.