Rome no longer just looks back with pride on its millennial heritage; Now it is also looking to the future with sensors, artificial intelligence and smart urban platforms.
In November 2025, the Italian capital was recognized as the “Smart City of 2025” at the prestigious World Smart City Awards, held within the framework of the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona.
Not only does this award represent yet another honorable mention for the city’s curriculum, but it embodies a statement of principles: even the oldest territories can lead urban innovation if they understand the power of data and digital planning.
“The City is Transforming”: when history intersects with the future
By: Gabriel E. Levy B.
Rome was not always an example of efficiency.
For decades, it was the target of criticism for its bureaucratic management, its uncoordinated public services and an aging infrastructure that seemed to be trapped in its own past.
However, something began to change from 2021, when the Municipality of Rome launched a series of pilot plans focused on the digitalisation of public services and the management of urban mobility.
This was the germ of a more ambitious strategy: The City is Transforming.
This program, as highlighted by the international jury of the Smart City Expo World Congress, not only introduced cutting-edge technologies such as 5G networks, digital twins and data integration platforms.
He also redefined the way the city thinks of itself: not as a space that must be “caught up,” but as a living organism that can anticipate and respond to social and environmental challenges through urban intelligence.
Authors such as Roberta Cucca have analysed how European cities, particularly those with a complex urban legacy, tend to resist profound structural changes.
However, Rome defied that pattern. Instead of modernizing despite its history, it decided to build on it.
A smart city is a city that prepares for the unpredictable
The choice of Rome as the smart city of the year cannot be separated from a crucial context: the Jubilee of 2025.
This religious event, which is held every 25 years, will bring together millions of people in the city, testing its responsiveness, urban mobility and hospital infrastructure.
The challenge was monumental: how to welcome crowds without collapsing utilities, how to ensure the energy sustainability of a city whose power grid was designed for a completely different era, how to prevent incidents before they happen.
It was in this context that Rome opted for the combination of predictive analysis and citizen participation.
One of the keys was the implementation of digital twins, a technology that allows virtually the entire urban structure to be replicated to simulate traffic scenarios, emergencies or even energy consumption.
This tool, added to a robust 5G network and an integrated data platform, made it possible to coordinate in real time from lighting to solid waste, including tourist flows and restricted access areas.
Giulio Verdini, a specialist in sustainable urban development, has argued that a city’s ability to become “smart” lies not only in its technological level, but in its ability to build participatory, transparent and adaptive processes. In this sense, Rome did not limit itself to acquiring technology: it transformed its methods of governance.
Technology, Participation and Urban Resilience
A city does not become smart by decree, nor by the mere installation of sensors on its avenues.
Roma understood that the urban future requires a different narrative, one that combines technological pillars with inclusive public policies and active citizenship.
The City is Transforming project includes an urban platform that integrates various sectors: mobility, energy, urban planning and participatory governance.
This digital ecosystem was built in collaboration with universities, startups and international organizations, giving rise to a decentralized but highly coordinated management model.
For example, public transport was one of the sectors that benefited the most. Thanks to real-time data, bus and tram routes were optimized, waiting times were reduced, and interconnectivity with shared mobility systems was improved.
In addition, digital incentives were introduced for citizens to opt for sustainable means of transport, all managed from a single urban application that also serves as a channel for citizen participation.
At the same time, energy efficiency was strengthened through a monitoring system in public buildings and schools, which allows consumption to be adjusted according to real needs.
And in terms of urban security, the integration of smart cameras and sensors made it possible to prevent incidents and respond more quickly to emergency situations.
These advances were not isolated developments, but part of a comprehensive strategy that aims to make Rome a resilient, inclusive and sustainable city, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Cities with history, cities with a future
Rome is not the only historic city that has opted for a smart transformation.
Florence, for example, developed a tourist flow analysis system to avoid overloading its most visited heritage sites.
Lisbon implemented a circular economy model in its oldest neighborhoods, integrating technology for the reuse of water and waste.
And Paris, with its Réinventer Paris project, linked urban intelligence with ecological architecture to transform historic buildings into habitable spaces of the future.
However, the Roman case has a peculiarity: its scale. While other cities opted for specific interventions, Rome proposed a structural, transversal and long-term oriented transformation.
Its success lay not only in the quality of the technologies used, but also in the ability to articulate multiple social and public actors in the same horizon of meaning.
It should also be noted that, unlike many smart city projects promoted by large technology companies that prioritize efficiency over equity, Roma insisted on a people-centered approach.
The city’s digital platform includes spaces for citizen deliberation, budget transparency mechanisms and a digital literacy policy in vulnerable neighborhoods.
Because a city is only truly smart when all its inhabitants can share in its benefits.
In conclusion, Rome proved that the urban future is not reserved exclusively for Silicon Valley metropolises or cities newly planned from scratch.
Cities with centuries of history can also lead innovation if they find a way to harmonize their past with the tools of the present.
The Smart City of 2025 award does not only recognize a technological strategy, but a vision of a city that adapts, transforms and prepares for what is to come, without renouncing what was.
References
- Cucca, R. (2019). Unequal Cities: The Challenge of Post-industrial Transition in Times of Austerity. Routledge.
- Verdini, G. (2020). Urban China’s Transition: From Work Units to Economic Zones. Springer.
- Smart City Expo World Congress (2025). World Smart City Awards 2025: Roma premiata come Smart City dell’anno. Fira de Barcelona.
- City of Rome (2025). The City is Transforming: Strategia urbana per Roma intelligente.
- UN-Habitat (2022). Guide for sustainable and inclusive cities.
