Page 27 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

 technology and infrastructure

 sustainability
 governance
 economy

Each of these attributes and their components are described below:

Table 2 – Categories and components of the city level services dimension

Technology and infrastructure Sustainability
 Transportation  Environmental and natural hazards
 Buildings  Water: consumption, leakage
 Fire and emergency response  CO2: emissions, reduction
 Health care  Air Quality: NO, SO, particulates
 Urban planning  Waste: solid, water, land use
 Safety and security  Policies: recycling, reduction
 Education  Energy: consumption, intensity
Governance Economy
 Organization  Economic strength
 Law and justice  Human capital
 Resilience  Institutional effectiveness
 Leadership  Financial maturity
 Commitment  Physical (financial) capital
 Environmental regulation  Production/resourcing

It can be observed that some of the attributes for this dimension are common to those discussed in
the “environment and sustainability dimension”; however, while there are overlapping
components, the lens through which they are viewed differ. For one, the environment and
sustainability dimension views these shared attributes as the backdrop of a functional smart
sustainability city, while the city level service dimension focuses on the operational aspect of these
shared attributes and thus form corresponding strategies that would ensure and provide quality
services.

2.3 Quality of life

Quality of life (QoL) is a recurrent theme in understanding the nature and operation of a city and a
key dimension since it reflects how citizens or inhabitants of a city perceive their own sense of
well‐being. People are constantly striving to better themselves across many facets of their lives. The
trend of rapid urbanization is reflected here because of the migration to urban areas in search of
better employment and hopefully improved living conditions.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines quality of life as an individual's perception of their
position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to
their goals, expectations, standards and concerns. It is a broad ranging concept affected in a complex
way by the person's physical health, psychological state, personal beliefs, social relationships and
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their relationship to salient features of their environment.

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20 http://www.who.int/healthinfo/survey/whoqol‐qualityoflife/en/

ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 17