Global cities
In 2008 for the first time ever the number of people who lived in cities was higher than people in rural areas. According to data from McKinsey Global Institute in 2011 people who lived in cities all over the world generated more than 80 percent of global GDP. Moreover, 600 urban centers have 22% of global population and generate about 60 percent of global GDP.1 Most of the predictions clearly show that importance of cities for human development and global economy will increase and this trend will continue in a long term.
Foreign Policy noted that "the world’s biggest, most interconnected cities help set global agendas, weather transnational dangers, and serve as the hubs of global integration. They are the engines of growth for their countries and the gateways to the resources of their regions.”2
There are many classifications and rankings of the most important cities. Due to the applied criteria and methodology, I have concentrated into two rankings: Global Cities Index and World Cities.
In 2010 consulting firm A.T. Kearney, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the American journal Foreign Policy published a next edition of ranking of global cities – The Global Cities Index. The Index ranks cities on 25 metrics across five dimensions, defined generally as the ability to attract, retain and generate global capital, people and ideas:
Business activity - Fortune Global 500 headquarters and the value of a city’s capital markets, number of international conferences, flow of goods, and the volume of the goods that pass through the city.
Human capital - Size of a city’s foreign-born population, the quality of its universities, the number of international schools, the international student population and the percentage of residents with university degrees.
Information exchange - Number of international news bureaus, the level of censorship, the amount of international news in the leading local papers and the broadband subscriber rate.
Cultural experience - Number of major sporting events a city hosts, how many museums, performing arts venues and diverse culinary establishments, as well as the sister-city relationships.
Political engagement - Number of embassies and consulates, major think tanks, international organizations and local institutions with international reach that reside in the city, and the number of political conferences a city hosts.3
20 cities with the highest score in the Global City Index 2010 are presented below.
| Rank | City | Score |
| 1 | New York | 6,22 |
| 2 | London | 5,86 |
| 3 | Tokyo | 5,42 |
| 4 | Paris | 5,35 |
| 5 | Hong Kong | 4,14 |
| 6 | Chicago | 3,94 |
| 7 | Los Angeles | 3,90 |
| 8 | Singapore | 3,45 |
| 9 | Sydney | 3,44 |
| 10 | Seoul | 3,40 |
| 11 | Brussels | 3,29 |
| 12 | San Francisco | 3,26 |
| 13 | Washington D.C. | 3,25 |
| 14 | Toronto | 3,13 |
| 15 | Beijing | 3,12 |
| 16 | Berlin | 3,03 |
| 17 | Madrid | 3,02 |
| 18 | Vienna | 2,96 |
| 19 | Boston | 2,78 |
| 20 | Frankfurt | 2,78 |
Full complex research in the matter of comparisons of cities is provided by Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC), think tank based in the Geography department at Loughborough University in England.
Cities are assessed in terms of their advanced services like accountancy, advertising, banking/finance and law. It means ranking categorizes cities by offices of certain multinational corporations providing financial and consulting services rather than cultural, political, and other economic issues.
The GaWC inventory identifies three levels of global cities and several sub-ranks. World cities are divided into groups according their level of world city network integration:
Alpha cities (subcategories: alpha++, alpha+, alpha and alpha- cities) - highly integrated cities, largely filling in advanced service needs, they are very important world cities that link major economic regions and states into the world economy.
All beta level cities - these are important world cities that are instrumental in linking their region or state into the world economy.
All gamma level cities - these can be world cities linking smaller regions or states into the world economy, or important world cities whose major global capacity is not in advanced producer services.
The classification of Alpha Global Cities in 2010 is presented below.
| Rank | Cities |
| ALPHA ++ | LONDON, NEW YORK |
| ALPHA + | HONG KONG, PARIS, SINGAPORE, TOKYO, SHANGHAI, CHICAGO, DUBAY, SYDNEY |
| ALPHA | MILAN, BEIJING, TORONTO, SAO PAULO, MADRID, MUMBAI, LOS ANGELES, MOSCOW, FRANKFURT, MEXICO CITY, AMSTERDAM, BUENOS AIRES, KUALA LUMPUR, SEOUL, BRUSSELS, JAKARTA, SAN FRANCICO, WASHINGTON |
| ALPHA - | MIAMI, DUBLIN, MELBOURNE, ZURICH, NEW DELHI, MUNICH, ISTAMBUL, BOSTON, WARSAW, DALLAS, VIENNA, ATLANTA, BARCELONA, BANGKOK, TAIPEI, SANTIAGO, LISBON, PHILADELPHIA, JOHANESBURG |
In both rankings (and many others) we can find two leading cities – London and New York. Both of them are more developed in various areas, with higher potential and ability to create new ideas than all other cities. Another important global cities are: Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Rankings presented above concern cities without taking into account countries where they are located. In the following list you can compare countries with the highest GDP and number of cities in the presented rakings.
| Country | GDP Rank | The Global Cities Index | Alpha cities |
| United States | 1 | 9 | 10 |
| China | 2 | 6 | 3 |
| Japan | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Germany | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| France | 5 | 1 | 1 |
| United Kingdom | 6 | 1 | 1 |
| Brazil | 7 | 2 | 1 |
| Italy | 8 | 2 | 1 |
| Canada | 9 | 2 | 1 |
| India | 10 | 4 | 2 |
| Russia | 11 | 1 | 1 |
| Spain | 12 | 2 | 2 |
| Australia | 13 | 1 | 2 |
| Mexico | 14 | 1 | 1 |
| South Korea | 15 | 1 | 1 |
| Netherlands | 16 | 1 | 1 |
| Turkey | 17 | 1 | 1 |
| Indonesia | 18 | 1 | 1 |
| Switzerland | 19 | 2 | 1 |
| Poland | 20 | 0 | 1 |
You can find more detailed information in following links:
- www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc
- www.atkearney.com/index.php/Publications/global-cities-index.html
1. McKinsey Global Institute, www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/dotcom/Insights%20and%20pubs/MGI/Research/Urbanization/Urban%20world%20mapping%20economic%20power%20of%20cities/MGI_urban_world_mapping_economic_power_of_cities_full_report.ashx , 29.12.2011.
2. Foreign Policy, www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2008/10/15/the_2008_global_cities_index , 29.12.2011.
3. A. T. Kaerney, www.atkearney.com/index.php/Publications/global-cities-index.html , 29.12.2011.
4. Globalization and World Cities Research Network, www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/gawcworlds.html , 29.12.2011.
