Dear Mr.Ibrahim Badi and coauthors, Željko Stević , Muhammad Lawan Jibril

I have read your paper “Using the MCDM Approach to Evaluate Smart and Sustainable Cities”

These are my comments.

1- I think it is an excellent idea to have a procedure to qualify cities regarding their smartness and sustainability. This is indeed something needed.

Regarding your selection of criteria, it would be necessary that the paper explains the meaning and scope of each criterion and how the performance values have been obtained. You say nothing about it This is a major and important task and deserves a detailed explanation so other studies can profit from it.

2- The word ‘smart’ is used abundantly, but how do you define it relative to cities?

The British Standards Institution (BSI) defines a smart city as “the effective integration of physical, digital and human systems in the built environment to deliver sustainable, prosperous and inclusive future for its citizens” (London, the Engineering and Design Institute)

How do you define ‘Smart economy’, ‘Smart environment’, ‘Smart governance’, Smart living’, and the other criteria? And most especially, how do you obtain the respective values for each city?

As an idea, smart economy can be computed as the ratio between input and output.

3- In my opinion the list of criteria needs to be greatly expanded, for instance, including aspects like those included in this incomplete list:

· Airport traffic with local and international connections

· Art in the city (music, festivals, art galleries)

· Average air quality

· Average domestic recycling ratio

· Average income per capita

· Average life expectancy

· Average water consumption

· Number of companies developing software

· City urban connectivity

· City connexion with other important cities

· City government in promoting free education on trades

· City streets lighting using LED

· Green space per inhabitant (m2/person)

· Input - output ratio for food, water, fuels (looking for a closed economy),

· Internet connection

· Km. of pedestrian areas in downtown

· Museums

· Number of hospitals

· People access to urban transportation

· Percentage of people with access to sewage

· Percentage of domestic waste recycled

· Percentage of industrial waste recycled

· Potable water quality

· Protection of animal life

· Ratio between population and universities

· Resilience

· Status of sidewalks and access for wheelchairs

· Transport frequency

· Transport between the airport and downtown

· Urban transportation (buses, metro, km. of bike lanes)

· Water quality in rivers and creeks traversing the city

It is a big undertaking and some cities are already adopting some of these measures like Barcelona with ‘super squares’, New York making pedestrian the most iconic part of downtown, Seoul using a central creek as a park, etc.

4- You don’t explain how you got the sequence of criteria.

I believe, that even with its shortage of criteria, this is a great article, that can have considerable influence in many other countries and cities.

I hope this can help

Nolberto Munier