American business magazine Forbes says Amsterdam is the fifth ‘smartest’ city in the world

Smart, small, efficient

Amsterdam is the only city in the ‘advanced industrial world’ to rank in the top 5. Singapore is one, Hong Kong is second, Curitiba (Brazil) third, Monterrey (Mexico) fourth. Forbes determined its list of "smartest" cities not only by looking at the sheer size of a city or how ‘green’ a city is, but at a combination of factors, like infrastructure, livability, and economic fundamentals.

Forbes says today’s ‘smart cities’ tend to be smaller, compact and more efficient and are for those reasons more attractive to do business. Cities like New York, Mexico City, London, Tokyo or Sao Paulo, suffer from "congenital congestion, out-of-control real estate prices and expanding income disparities."

Amsterdam Metropolitan Area, strategic location, low taxes

Here are the reasons why Forbes chose the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area:

• Amsterdam, a longstanding financial and trading capital, is home to seven of the world's top 500 companies, including Philips and ING.
• It has relatively low corporate taxes and income taxes on foreign workers, which attract individuals and companies.
• In 2008, the Netherlands was the largest recipient of American investment in Europe.
• Amsterdam's advantages include a well-educated, multilingual population and a lack of political corruption.
• Amsterdam is relatively small in size (740,000 in the city and 1.2 million for the Amsterdam Area).
• It is strategically located in the heart of Europe and next to the continent's dominant port.
• Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, Europe's third-busiest, is only 20 minutes from the centre of Amsterdam, luxurious compared to commuting to the major London or Paris airports.
• Schiphol Airport has also given rise to a series of economically vibrant "edge cities", that "appear like more transit-friendly versions of Houston, Texas or Orange County, California."

To read the full story visit Forbes' smart cities, click here.