Is there a correlation between sustainability and economic development of the city and the Smart City? We often read statements about how the Smart City also promotes the sustainability of the city, however it would be necessary to explain the value of the word smart in front of the city. If we understand Smart City in an exquisitely technological way, the examples carried out in Toronto by Google, to name one, have proven to be a failure, they could be traced back to what Richard Sennet stated about ten years ago in “The Stupefying Smart City” (a use of technology that makes people more stupid-and that’s not quite a word I like, but it’s a wonderful title) …the argument would expand a lot…

Here, we want to anticipate some work we have done while still providing some answers to the title: does the 2030 Agenda generate wealth? Through the 2030 Assessment (https://www.sis-ter.com/servizi-e-soluzioni/assessment-2030/) we measure the ranking of a territory according to the objectives set by the UN with the 2030 agenda in 2015. With a series of sub-indicators we have constructed and monitor the main positioning ranking indicators also called sustainable development goals (SdGs). These Goals are 17 and the sub-indicators are over a hundred. For this reason, a platform has been created for all the municipalities in Italy, that allows us to understand and have measures of a wide range of cognitive elements. Well, if we compare the average residential real estate values of the Italian municipalities and the ranking of these municipalities according to the overall objectives of Agenda 2030, it clearly emerges that a growth in this value also favors a growth in real estate values (Fig 1). In fact,the lower real estate values appear to emerge above all in municipalities that have a low index on Agenda 2030 (lower values compared to the average obtained on the 17 Goals). The implementation of the Agenda is therefore one of the conditions value to generate.

We know very well that some objectives can be more positive than other negative. If we begin to analyze the individual Goals we can understand other dynamics and draw other considerations. In particular, if we take SdGs 11 relating to sustainable communities, we find a trend and extremely explicit correlation: municipalities with a smaller size have higher values than large cities. So rather than Smart City, we should talk about Smart Land thinking about sustainable communities. Considering that the driving sub-indicators in the development of Goal 11 are mainly data relating to cycle paths, green areas and land consumption, but not only that, we can translate the reasoning by confirming that real estate values are strictly correlated in a proportional manner to the size of the cities: larger cities have higher real estate values as average values, compared to small municipalities but inversely they identify less sustainable communities (Fig 2). Instead, if we take the fight against poverty as a reference and therefore all those socio-economic indicators linked to socio-economic well-being, we have higher values for large cities, where there is more possibility of turnover, greater opportunities and infrastructures, greater incomes and how recorded higher real estate values.