Smart City Analytics: state of the art and future perspectives

In accordance with a "people centred" vision, this paper critically examines current approaches to smart cities benchmarking. In particular, by means of correlation analysis and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) we put in evidence current limitations of city rankings and, as well, the emergence of different perspectives for data interpretations. To follow, a possible redesign of the "Smart Cities Analytics" grounded on the traces left by individuals, is suggested. In particular, as an example, we focus on the potential of automatic text analysis tools to extract people perceptions and expectations that, in turns, demonstrate the need to integrate bottom-up and top-down approaches to city benchmarking. Finally a novel definition of smart city is proposed based on the territorial state of flow and, as a consequence, a novel path toward smart city benchmarking is brought forward.