This report presents the findings of a study conducted at the Urban Studies Lab of Queensland University of Technology (QUT) - with support from the Australian Government’s Department of Infrastructure, Trans - port, Regional Development and Communications (DITRDC) - that placed Australian local government areas under the smart city microscope to evaluate their performances. The study selected the local government areas that are in the greater capital city statistical areas along with the larger local government areas (with population over 50,000) located beyond the greater capital city statistical areas. These 180 local government areas—that house over 85% of the Australian population—are evaluated against the ‘Smart City Assessment Model’ criteria—that measure the smart city outcomes, and provide a snapshot of the smart city performance of the local government areas.

Key findings:

• More than a quarter (about 27.5%) of Australians are residing in a local government area that is classified as top-performing;
• Top-performing local government areas are those located in a metropolitan city-region with higher population densities;
• Relatively stronger performance exists in the Liveability & Wellbeing areas across the investigated local government areas;
• General weakness exists in the Sustainability & Accessibility, and Governance & Planning areas across the investigated local government areas;
• High performance in the Productivity & Innovation areas only exists at the topperforming local government areas; and
• 33% of the top-performing local government areas are located in NSW, 23% in WA, 20% in VIC, 15% in SA, 3% in NT, and 2% each in QLD, ACT and TAS—however, when the population of the local government areas is considered the state/territory performance ranking (based on population weighted coverage) becomes as follows: NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, ACT, SA, NT, and TAS.

The study also generates insights for understanding the reasons behind the performance differences of local government areas.