Towards a Synthetic Smart City Index S. Giordano 1* , P. Lombardi 1 , O. Caldarice 2 , M. Cerruti But 1 1 Politecnico di Torino, Interuniversity Department of Urban and Regional Studies and Planning, Viale Mattioli 39, 10129 Torino, Italy. 2 Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32, 20133 Milano, Italy. *Corresponding author: E-mail: silvia.giordano@polito.it, Tel +39 011 0907467 Abstract Worldwide urban planning policies are today struggling for creating Smart Cities. Smartness is also the contemporary issue everybody desires to deal with. Although literature highlight several fields of activity and a number of main dimensions in relation to Smart City, there is a lack of appropriate metrics which enable to evaluate smart city performances and to support urban policy makers. This paper illustrates a methodology for evaluating the smartness level of a city and presents first relevant results. The evaluation model is based on quantitative performance indicators and it is tested on four case studies: Torino, Milano, Genova and Firenze. Some relevant implications of the obtained results are provided in the conclusion together with research’s future steps. Keywords: smart cities; open data; performance indicator; evaluation model; synthetic index. 1. INTRODUCTION The debate on Smart City is going on and expanding, affecting different scientific fields and both private and public actors. Debates about the future of urban development in many Western countries have been influenced by discussion of smart city. Provide a unique definition of smart city is very complex because the concept is addressed by an extensive literature, constantly evolving and quite fashionable [9,10,17,8]. The first idea of smart city is strictly related to the ICT and creative industries that have transformed many urban areas economically, socially and spatially. The technological and creative city hints at some of the more normative and ideological dimensions of the concept/label and “smart city appear to be a wired city” [10]. In recent years, the idea of smart city has evolved including spatial issues. Urban performances currently depends not only on a city’s endowment of hard infrastructure (physical capital), but also, and increasingly, on the availability and quality of knowledge communication and social infrastructure (human and social capital). In this new idea of smart city, the important role of ICT is supported by the role of human capital/education, of social and relational capital, and of environmental interest as important drivers of urban growth [2]. So, this new generation of smart city approach is more focused on the human capital. As Hollands states [10], smart city must start with people because ICT itself cannot automatically transform and improve cities. Hollands argues also that “the smart city needs to create a real shift in the balance of power between the use of information technology by business, government, communities an ordinary people who live in cities, as well as seek to balance economic growth with sustainability” [10]. In this perspective, a smart city can ben the driving force of competiveness and social cohesion that joins knowledge, innovation and creativity: a smart city therefore is a city with an high urban quality and an high capacity to innovate by developing integrated actions regarding all aspects of economy, environment, governance, transport and ICT.