The second edition of the Strategic Management Index of Cities, developed by the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), revealed which are the best cities in the country to live in, with the Federal Capital taking the top spot. According to the report accessed by the Argentine News Agency, the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires leads the ranking, followed by Mendoza, Córdoba, San Miguel de Tucumán, Rosario, San Juan, Santa Fe, Salta, Mar del Plata, and Resistencia. To compile this index, the Center for Smart Cities, which is part of the mentioned faculty, studied the strategic development of the country's 10 most prominent urban conglomerates during 2025. The index reflects on a scale of 0 to 5 the result of an analysis of five dimensions: political and institutional, economic development, society, environment, and technology and infrastructure. It is also explained that each of these dimensions is broken down into 31 representative variables, which in turn open up to a wide range of 159 indicators. Regarding the difference between 2024 and 2025, the authorities stated that the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires maintains the highest overall valuation and in each of the analytical dimensions it achieved last year. Similar cases occur in Mendoza, Córdoba, and Rosario, which had slight increases in their scores. San Miguel de Tucumán is the city that had a marked growth in its strategic development levels, supported by a strong increase in the political-institutional dimension. Salta also improved its performance significantly, while Mar del Plata and Resistencia drove slight increases in their valuation. Finally, San Juan and Santa Fe show slight decreases in their values, although these do not reflect significant levels. Omar Quiroga, head of the Center for Smart Cities, explained that 'the objective of this work is to establish, both quantitatively and qualitatively, a diagnosis of each of the cities studied, to understand their strengths and weaknesses in order to obtain a diagnosis that will allow, in the future, to design innovative public policy strategies or rethink those that are being implemented, thus facilitating harmonious and sustainable development.' 'The objective continues to be to develop a powerful indicator that allows establishing a starting point to measure urban sustainability and address Smart City agendas in the ten urban conglomerates analyzed,' he pointed out.
