Pittsburgh, PA

Metro 21: Smart Cities Institute is a Carnegie Mellon University program that works with the City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, and other government organizations to employ technology to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas. As a result, Pittsburgh gets a spot on ranking of the top ten smart cities.

Best smart initiative: One of Metro 21's dozens of initiatives is an artificial light survey of nighttime Pittsburgh at resolutions finer than open satellite surveys. Drone flights with cameras and spectrometers create a high-resolution map of Pittsburgh at night. The data is utilized in scientific studies of light pollution and its consequences in order to identify the city's biggest light polluters.