// CITY_ASSESSMENT

How smart is San Francisco?

San Francisco scores 83.9% against the DC20 smart city framework in 2026 — ranked #20 of 213 cities assessed, with every finding traceable to a public source.

Smart score

83.9%

Rank

#20 / 213

Criteria present

66 / 82

Evidence coverage

87.8%

San Francisco's smart city score by area

Data & Digital Foundation85%

16 present · 2 partial · 2 absent · 1 not assessed

Mobility78%

11 present · 3 partial · 2 absent

Environment & Resources81%

13 present · 0 partial · 3 absent · 1 not assessed

Governance & People100%

20 present · 0 partial · 0 absent

Economy & Method93%

6 present · 1 partial · 0 absent · 1 not assessed

Where San Francisco is strong

  • City Data Platform / Urban Data Exchange
  • EV & Active-Travel Infrastructure
  • Resilience & Climate Adaptation
  • Digital Government / e-Services
  • Citizen Engagement & Participation

Where the gaps are

  • Real-time Public Transit Intelligence
  • Smart Energy & Buildings
  • Pervasive IoT Sensing
  • Interoperability & Open Standards
  • Air-Quality & Climate Monitoring

Evidence highlights

Open Data by Default · Official open data portal

San Francisco has an official open data portal, accessible at data.sfgov.org and datasf.org, which is linked from the city's main website.

https://sf.gov/topics/open-data

Open Data by Default · Open APIs / programmatic access

The city's open data platform appears to offer programmatic access, as indicated by a developer-focused Socrata domain (dev.socrata.com), a common platform for open data APIs.

https://dev.socrata.com/

Open Data by Default · Open licensing & terms

San Francisco has official open data policies and standards, which would typically include clear licensing and reuse terms for its datasets.

https://sf.gov/information/open-data-policies-and-standards

Open Data by Default · High-value dataset coverage

The open data portal includes high-value datasets, specifically transportation data, as evidenced by a dedicated category on data.sfgov.org and reports from the SFMTA.

https://data.sfgov.org/browse?category=Transportation

About this assessment

San Francisco was assessed against the 82 criteria of the DC20 smart city framework on 2026-06-26 by AI agents gathering evidence from official public sources. Each criterion is marked present, partial or absent, and every finding links to where it was found — see how smart cities are measured. Scores refresh continuously as cities publish new evidence.