According to the latest survey on the degree of innovation in our country, the smartest city in Italy is Florence (Tuscany), followed by Milan (Lombardy) and Bologna (Emilia Romagna). What is worrying, however, is the concentration of southern municipalities in the last positions in the ranking.

The occasion for the review comes from the latest edition of ICity Rank 2021, the survey on the digitization of Italian cities carried out on a sample of 107 Italian capital municipalities. Third place went to a tied group of cities: Bergamo and Cremona (Lombardy), Bologna and Modena (Emilia Romagna), Rome (Lazio) and Trento (Trentino Alto Adige).

Among the smartest cities, as many as 10 are metropolitan capitals (out of 14 overall), almost all of them in the Center-North, evidence of the persistence of a certain lag of the South and smaller realities despite a catching-up trend.

The survey examines the digital transformation of territories. The arithmetic mean obtained stems from eight sectoral indices, summarizing 35 indicators based on 150 variables: online services, social channels, enabling platforms, open data, openness, public wi-fi, municipal apps and internet of things.

Scrolling down the ranking, in ninth position we find the ex aequo of Cagliari (Sardinia) and Genoa (Liguria), in 11th Parma (Emilia Romagna) and Turin (Pemonte), in 13th Brescia (Lombardy) and Venice (Veneto), in 15th Palermo (Sicily), Prato (Tuscany), Reggio Emilia and Rimini (Emilia Romagna) and Verona (Veneto), in 20th Bari (Puglia), Cesena (Emilia Romagna) and Pisa (Tuscany), in 23rd Padua (Veneto), in 24th Lecce (Puglia), Siena (Tuscany) and Vicenza (Veneto).

Together with the municipalities on the podium, these urban centers make up the group of 26 "digital cities," capable of widespread, organic and continuous use of new technologies. Another 75, on the other hand, are at an intermediate stage in their digital growth path and seven at the bottom of the ranking, critically with an index below 30: Rieti (Lazio), Avellino and Benevento (Campania), Foggia (Puglia), Agrigento and Enna (Sicily) and in last place Isernia (Molise).

There is a definite acceleration in the average level of digitization and a rebalancing that has led to shortening distances from the top even by several realities between southern cities and smaller towns. Among the most significant instances of growth are Messina (Sicily), which improved by as many as 34 positions from 62nd to 28th during 2022, L'Aquila (Abruzzo), Cuneo (Piedmont), Imperia (Liguria) and Trapani (Sicily), which gained 16 points.

Cagliari (Sardinia), Palermo (Sicily) and Bari (Apulia) are confirmed at the top among southern Italian cities. After Lecce (Puglia), Messina (Sicily) , Naples (Campania) and Pescara (Abruzzo) are also now close to joining the digital cities.

If we analyze the last decade of ICity Rank results, we can see a progressive digital growth of cities on two levels: the "functional" one, with the putting online of more and more services and the creation of platforms for identity, payment, interaction that have facilitated their use; and the "communication" one, with the spread of social media, apps, open data, public and free wi-fi networks.