Dubai, Abu Dhabi rank in top 5 smart cities in IMD 2025 index amid global housing crisis
Dubai, which scored 82.8/100 on medical services and 83.4/100 for green spaces, was ranked fourth, while Abu Dhabi, which scored 84.7/100 for medical services provision and 83.8/100 for satisfactory green spaces, was ranked fifth.
The Index, now in its sixth year, is the tool that the World Competitiveness Center (WCC) – IMD's competitiveness powerhouse – uses to assess how cities balance various dimensions, ranging from jobs and housing to environmental concerns and inclusiveness.
WCC Chief Economist Christos Cabolis said the top 10 demonstrate that smart cities succeed when they prioritise livability, sustainability, and governance, using technology not as a goal but as a tool to empower residents and address local challenges.
New entrants to the index this year were AlUla in Saudi Arabia, Astana (formerly Nur Sultan) in Kazakhstan, Caracas in Venezuela, Kuwait City in Kuwait, Manama in Bahrain, and San Juan in Puerto Rico.
'The top three cities are able to provide all the amenities citizens require for a good quality of life while not suffering from diseconomies of scale such as congestion caused by public transport, and pollution,' said William Milner, Associate Director of the WCC.
'They have obtained a somewhat exceptional status thanks to their size, but also their niche economies – oil in the case of Norway, and high quality and high value-added manufacturing exports in the case of Switzerland,' he said.
Milner said smaller, more independent economies could also prove more protected in the Trump trade war because they have goods that are not highly replaceable in the short term – the knowledge needed would take a generation.
WCC said making housing more affordable is the top priority for most of the respondents of the survey generating the 2025 IMD Smart City Index.
'Access to housing is a global issue, driven by three major factors: population moves and immigration reducing the supply of affordable housing, overall price increases, and increasing prices of certain commodities,' said WCC Director Arturo Bris.
The 2025 SCI report also touched upon how US President Trump's tariffs on steel (and potentially lumber) are expected to increase development costs, putting further stress on an already-constrained housing supply.
The housing crisis is cutting across geographical divides, felt in cities as diverse as Dublin, Vancouver, and Dubai, the report said.
In these cities, between 80-90 percent of the 2025 SCI survey respondents expressed concern over the affordability of housing – saying it was a priority area in their city, it said.
'As we move into a new geopolitical order, cities will play a much more important role than countries,' Bris said.
'We have moved into a fragmented economy and major urban areas will be the center of all economic activities in the coming years,' he added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Zawya
37 minutes ago
- Zawya
Trump unlikely to enforce tariff threat on Russian oil
U.S. President Donald Trump is unlikely to follow through on his threat to place 100% tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil because it would worsen politically-damaging inflation pressures and his similar threat against buyers of Venezuelan oil has had limited success, especially in China. Trump said this month he would put 100% secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian exports unless Moscow agrees to a major peace deal with Ukraine in 50 days, a deadline that would expire in early September. The threat mirrored an announcement in March that the U.S. would slap tariffs on buyers of sanctioned Venezuelan oil. No such tariffs have been imposed since, even though Venezuela's exports of oil have jumped. "We find that secondary tariffs may be too blunt of an instrument for the administration to use," on Russia, said Fernando Ferreira, the director of geopolitical risk service at consultancy Rapidan Energy Group. "If you're willing to go with the nuclear option by removing 4.5 plus million barrels a day from the market, and you're willing to cut off commercial ties with other countries because they're importing Russian oil, you're going to risk massive oil price spikes and a meltdown of the global economy." Clay Seigle, senior fellow and James Schlesinger chair in energy and geopolitics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that if the 100% tariff is fully enforced on countries that receive Russian barrels, it has the potential to cut global supplies and drive prices higher. Analysts and traders are deeply skeptical that Trump will allow that to happen for two reasons, Seigle said. "First, he is very sensitive to high oil prices and will want to avoid that outcome." Second, Trump prefers consummating bilateral deals more than adhering to any strict formulas that would tie his hands in negotiations. "Some U.S. trade partner nations may, just like oil traders, dismiss this as grandstanding," Seigle said. On July 16, two days after issuing the tariff threat, Trump said the oil price of $64 a barrel was a great level, that his administration was trying to get it down a little bit more, and the low level was "one of the reasons that inflation's in check." Since then oil prices have stayed in the mid-$60s range, shrugging off the threat of imminent supply disruptions. Seigle said Trump's existing trade war, particularly his tariffs on steel, could push commodity prices higher for oil drillers in the United States, the world's top crude producer. That could raise prices for oil just as the midterm U.S. Congress elections get underway next year. Trump's Republicans hold razor-thin majorities in both the U.S. House and Senate and the president will likely avoid actions that spike oil prices during the campaigns, the analysts said. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump has proven he follows through on his promises. "He has been extremely tough on (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and smartly left all options on the table while leaving existing sanctions in place – and recently threatened Putin with biting tariffs and sanctions if he does not agree to a ceasefire." The Treasury Department, which administers sanctions, said it was ready to act. "As President Trump announced, Russia has 50 days to agree to a deal to end the war, or the U.S. is prepared to implement biting secondary sanctions," a spokesperson said. HESITANCY TO TARGET RUSSIA The Trump administration's lax enforcement of the 25% tariff threat in March on buyers of Venezuelan oil and the failure so far to impose effective energy sanctions on Russia are two other reasons why market participants are skeptical. China, Venezuela's top oil customer, has been adapting to U.S. sanctions on the oil exports since they were imposed in 2019. Over the last year, China has been buying more than $1 billion of Venezuelan oil rebranded as Brazilian, according to tanker tracking companies. Venezuela's exports surged in June as the loss of U.S. and European buyers was offset by cargoes sent to China. Indian oil refiners, major buyers of Russian crude, do not believe that Trump will follow through on the threat, and there are no plans to stop purchases of Russian oil, three sources at Indian refiners said. India's imports of Russian oil rose about 1% in the first half of this year, with refiners Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy making almost half of the overall purchases from Moscow, according to data provided by sources. Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, however, said the world's third-largest oil importer and consumer was confident of meeting its needs using alternative sources if Russian supplies are hit. Trump's Treasury Department has designated about 19 Russian nationals since January 20 under counter-terrorism, cyber, and North Korea sanctions programs, actions mostly not related to the war in Ukraine, said Jeremy Paner, a partner at law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed and former Treasury Department sanctions investigator. By comparison, the U.S. has designated about 75 Iranian nationals and entities and imposed 109 such measures on China since Trump began his second term, he said. "Based on the administration's apparent hesitancy to target Russia through trade sanctions, I do not see the Russian oil tariff threat as particularly effective," Paner said. Action is also not likely to come from Congress even though the U.S. Senate has strong bipartisan support for a bill that would impose 500% tariffs on buyers of Russian oil. The Senate's Republican leaders are waiting for Trump's go-ahead and have given no indication that they intend to take up the bill before they leave Washington for the August recess. Even if the bill passes, it will likely allow the president to waive tariffs, letting lawmakers claim they are tough on Russia but rendering the legislation mostly symbolic. "It all makes sense from a political messaging perspective, but from the perspective of what's needed for the legal authority on sanctions, it's a bit of a head scratcher," Paner said. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner; additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle in Washington, Nidhi Verma in New Delhi and Siyi Liu in Singapore Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Middle East Eye
5 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
Starmer's 'all guns, no butter' policy will cost him dearly
The recent Nato summit demanded that member states agree to reach a target of five percent of GDP on defence spending over the next decade. Nato secretary general Mark Rutte was beside himself with joy. This will make Nato 'more lethal', he vowed. Rutte was in no doubt as to why Nato had successfully agreed on this historic high in arms spending: US President Donald Trump, or 'daddy', as Rutte called him. In embarrassingly fulsome messages to Trump, made public by the US president, Rutte put to shame the most obsequious courtier in an 18th-century absolute monarchy, as he verbally prostrated himself at the feet of the ruler of the empire. In all fairness to Rutte, he was correctly summarising the view of European governments. Much as some claim to dislike Trump, they have fallen in line with his demands for increased arms expenditures in double-quick time. All but Spain endorsed the five-percent defence spending target, despite the fact that the US spends only 3.5 percent of GDP on arms. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Trump was triumphant, using the Nato news conference to rub the noses of European leaders in the latest proof that the US is the organisation's top dog. Never has founding secretary general Lord Ismay's aphorism - that Nato exists to keep 'the Soviet Union [read Russians] out, the Americans in, and the Germans [read Europeans] down' - been more true. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is an unqualified enthusiast for rearmament. The most clearly defining policy of his prime ministership so far, where so much else is shrouded in serial U-turns, is a commitment to US-led rearmament. The picture of Starmer at the recent G7 summit bowing at Trump's knee to pick up papers that the president had dropped went viral, because it accurately captured the political relationship between the two governments. Credibility gap Starmer, of course, signed up to the five percent of GDP rearmament target and coupled it with a commitment to buy a dozen American F35A fighters capable of carrying a nuclear payload, marking the first time the UK will have the capacity to deliver airborne nukes since the Cold War. The cost of this programme alone will be £15bn. More broadly, the newly publicised Strategic Defence Review underpins Starmer's over-inflated rhetoric about the UK needing to prepare to fight on the 'home front' in the case of a full land invasion of the UK. Such a project, unsuccessfully contemplated by Napoleon and Hitler, was last accomplished in 1066. There is no plausible modern candidate for this project. Russia, with an economy the size of Spain's and a military depleted by three years of unsuccessful war in Ukraine, is certainly not the 21st-century equivalent of either Napoleon or Hitler when their empires spanned the continent. Indeed, having failed to reach Kyiv, it is improbable to the point of absurdity to think that Russian troops might soon be on the Normandy beaches. The period of high Starmerism is past. Now the pendulum is swinging in the other direction, back towards traditional centrist Labourism The UK defence establishment and government are well aware that this huge credibility gap exists in the minds of British voters. The Strategic Defence Review spends an unusual amount of time worrying about how rearmament can be sold to the population. It calls for a 'national endeavour', first mooted by the previous Tory government, in which a wide variety of propaganda and 'educational' weapons will be fired at hapless citizens in order to reduce them to compliance with the warmongers' project. And there is no Starmer speech that does not echo the Strategic Defence Review's insistence that there will be a 'defence dividend', in the Orwellian language now common in government circles, that will result in more jobs. So far, the 'national endeavour' project is failing spectacularly. The purchase of F35A jets is a case in point. It's a slap in the face for Unite the Union general secretary Sharon Graham, who campaigned relentlessly for a renewal of the Eurofighter Typhoon fleet in the name of British jobs. In a sharp lesson in the UK's defence subservience to the US arms industry, Starmer ignored her and opted instead to flatter Trump with a purchase of American planes manufactured by Lockheed Martin, with only 15 percent of UK-made components. Leadership in danger But even when money spent by the UK government isn't pouring directly into the bank accounts of US defence contractors, it will never produce the same number of jobs as the same amount of money spent on civilian industry. Defence spending is simply a massively inefficient way of generating jobs. Beyond these specific arguments is the gigantic fact that Starmer is advocating huge increases in arms expenditures, while hacking away at the already emaciated welfare budget. The assault on welfare, the defining project of the first year of the Labour administration, has already produced a record-breaking back bench rebellion. This in turn produced yet another screeching U-turn from Starmer. Accompanying the U-turn is the blame game. At the moment, No. 10 guru Morgan McSweeney and 'iron chancellor' Rachel Reeves are the ones catching it in the neck. Starmer is running out of road Read More » As tens of thousands of people at the recent Glastonbury Festival cursed Starmer's name, Starmer himself has been busy apologising for his own mistakes to any journalist who will listen. A sure sign that Starmer's leadership is endangered was Health Secretary Wes Streeting's recent TV interview, in which he refuted criticism of the Glastonbury crowd by saying that Israel should get its 'own house in order'. Starmer is now a couple of by-election losses away from a leadership challenge. Perhaps he can make it to the May 2026 council elections if the fates spare sitting MPs and no by-election takes place. But whatever the timing proves to be, the period of high Starmerism is past. Now the pendulum is swinging in the other direction, back towards traditional centrist Labourism. A number of important consequences follow. Firstly, the time for Jeremy Corbyn to launch a new leftist party is now. Secondly, no new party can afford to be merely an electoral project: it must have the closest possible relations with Palestine and antiwar movements whose activists will be its core constituency. Thirdly, the antiwar movement will be central to ongoing opposition to the government. Reeves or her successor will return to the task of extracting the money for rearmament from working people, one way or another. The defence of working-class living standards at home will be intimately bound to opposition to the preparation for war abroad. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Al Etihad
6 hours ago
- Al Etihad
Trump says US will sell 'so much' beef to Australia
25 July 2025 10:15 WASHINGTON/CANBERRA (REUTERS)The United States will sell "so much" beef to Australia, US President Donald Trump said on Thursday after Canberra relaxed import restrictions, adding that other countries that refused US beef products were on on Wednesday said it would loosen biosecurity rules for US beef, something analysts predicted would not significantly increase US shipments because Australia is a major beef producer and exporter whose prices are much lower."We are going to sell so much to Australia because this is undeniable and irrefutable Proof that US Beef is the Safest and Best in the entire World," Trump said in a post on Truth Social."The other Countries that refuse our magnificent Beef are ON NOTICE," the post has attempted to renegotiate trade deals with numerous countries he says have taken advantage of the United States - a characterisation many economists dispute."For decades, Australia imposed unjustified barriers on US beef," US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement, calling Australia's decision a "major milestone in lowering trade barriers and securing market access for US farmers and ranchers."Australian officials say the relaxation of restrictions was not part of any trade negotiations but the result of a years-long assessment of US biosecurity has restricted US beef imports since 2003 due to concerns about bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. Since 2019, it has allowed in meat from animals born, raised and slaughtered in the US but few suppliers were able to prove that their cattle had not been in Canada and Wednesday, Australia's agriculture ministry said US cattle traceability and control systems had improved enough that Australia could accept beef from cattle born in Canada or Mexico and slaughtered in the United decision has caused some concern in Australia, where biosecurity is seen as essential to prevent diseases and pests from ravaging the farm which imports more from the US than it exports, faces a 10% across-the-board US tariff from next month, as well 50% tariffs on steel and aluminium. Trump has also threatened to impose a 200% tariff on whether the change would help achieve a trade deal, Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell said: "I'm not too sure." "We haven't done this in order to entice the Americans into a trade agreement," he said. "We think that they should do that anyway."
