Business View Magazine - May 2025

TECH HUBS: THESE 10 CITIES ARE ‘BEST PREPARED’ FOR A SMART CITY FUTURE OPENING LINES Source: www.americancityandcounty.com, Ryan Kushner, First Published May 12, 2025 Atlanta beat out coastal tech havens like San Jose, Calif., and Boston to rank as the top city for a “smart city future” in ProptechOS’s 2025 Smart City Index. The annual ranking is based on metrics related to tech infrastructure and connectivity, sustainability and each city’s tech job market. “Some of the benefits of scoring highly on these metrics for local citizens are that they can enjoy better public services, transport, security, economic opportunities and less air pollution,” according to ProptechOS, a software company based in Stockholm. Atlanta climbed from tenth place in last year’s index, where Seattle took the top spot. In the latest ranking, Atlanta scored 88 out of 100 for tech infrastructure, and scored 82 for its tech job market, with 643 tech jobs advertised per 10,000 people, according to the study. “Atlanta has the fourth-highest internet download and upload speeds of any major U.S. city,” ProptechOS stated. “Relative to its population size, Atlanta also boasts the third-highest number of companies dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT) and the fifthhighest number of artificial intelligence companies.” Atlanta has long been on a path toward strengthening its smart city status, joining the White House’s Smart Cities Initiative in 2015 and partnering with the Georgia Institute of Technology on smart city initiatives to ease traffic congestion, promote public safety and improve the city’s environmental sustainability.The city’s North Avenue Smart Corridor Project has been internationally recognized as a “living lab for active, multi-modal traffic management through technology deployment and data analytics.” Atlanta also met its Better Buildings Challenge goal two years ahead of schedule, reducing the city’s energy consumption by 20% in 2019 and saving 1.3 billion gallons of water. In May 2024 the city began enhancing the customerfacing digital products, including station screens and the mobile app for its Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid 11 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 12, ISSUE 05

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI5MjAx