The e-governance Institute at Rutgers University and a Korean university surveyed the online presence for 100 of the world's biggest cities and determined that Seoul, Korea is the model cities should emulate when it comes to providing services and information to its citizens. New York was 4th, and Toronto was 10th. But here's something: New York was the only U.S. city evaluated and Toronto was the only Canadian city evaluated. The study's authors. The authors say they "selected 98 countries with the highest percentage of Internet users, and examined the largest city in each of those countries as a surrogate for all cities in the country." I don't know about the rest of the world, but I guarantee you when Montrealers or Vancouverites hear that Toronto is acting as a surrogate for the rest of the country, they ain't going to be happy. Seriously, though, municipal governments are usually among the most independent of any jurisdiction, particularly in Western democracies and derive their revenues from vastly different and incomparable resources. For that reason, it seems pointless to have cities stand in as surrogates for others in as artifical a division as a country. (Why not have New York stand in as the surrogate for the northeastern part of North America, including Toronto, and let San Francisco stand in for the southwest). You can read the survey results here. The researchers claim that, based on their survey, there is a digital divide and the divide is drawn, in this case, along wealthier countries and less wealthy countries. (Apparently, they needed some research to come to that seemingly obvious conclusion.) But even if that conclusion is obvious, the lousy rationale for their city selection makes it easy to poke holes in their methodolgy and, as a result, their conclusion.

[Tip to the ITU Weblog for this.