Urban performance currently depends not only on a city＇ s endowment of hard infrastructure （physical capital）, but also, and increasingly so, on the availability and quality of knowledge communication and socialinfrastructure （human and social capital）. The latter form of capital is decisive for urban competitiveness. Against this background, the concept of the ＂smart city＂ has recently been introduced as a strategic device to encompass modern urban production factors in a common framework and, in particular, to highlight the importance of Information and Communication Technologies （ICTs） in the last 20 years for enhancing the competitive profile of a city. The present paper aims to shed light on the often elusive definition of the concept of the ＂smart city.＂ We provide a focused and operational definition of this construct and present consistent evidence on the geography of smart cities in the EU27. Our statistical and graphi- cal analyses exploit in depth, for the first time to our knowledge, the most recent version of the Urban Audit data set in order to analyze the factors determining the performance of smart cities. We find that the presence of a creative class, the quality of and dedicated attention to the urban environment, the level of education, and the accessibility to and use of ICTs for public admin- istration are all positively correlated with urban wealth. This result prompts the formulation of a new strategic agenda for European cities that will allow them to achieve sustainable urban de- velopment and a better urban landscape.%如今，一座城市的表现不仅取决于它的先天硬件（即有形资本），还更多地取决于知识流动的顺利与否、水平的高低以及社会的架构（人力资本与社会资本）。社会资本决定着城市的竞争力。在这一背景下，“智慧城市”的概念作为一种战略手段被提出，它将城市生产要素囊括于一个普遍的框架之中，更重要的是，它凸显出过去20年信息通讯技术对提升一座城市的竞争实力至关重要。本文旨在厘清“智慧城市”这个往往难以捉摸的概念。笔者针对这一构想提出一个浓缩且具可操作性的定义，并就欧盟27国中智慧城市的地理因素罗列出一系列证据。据笔者了解，本文的数据和图表分析首次深入运用最新版本的城市审计数据集，这些数据集设计的初衷就是为了分析影响智慧城市表现的决定性因素。我们发现：创意阶层的有无、城市环境的质量以及人们对城市环境的关注度、受教育水平、信息通讯技术（ICT）的通达性及其在公共管理领域中的应用，都与城市的财富正相关。这一结果促使欧洲城市形成新的战略，让它们实现城市可持续发展，创造更良好的城市景观。
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