Home much weight do you give Global Cities Index and other lists? (Chicago: real estate, elementary school)

[linicx]

All types of educated people and think tanks toil over piles of data to compile lists. Some criteria is as simple as Population or GDP. Some criteria is far more complex. The compilers all seem to agree that NYC is the top ranked city in the world.

The 2010 Globe Cities Index is a collaboration between the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and others. U.S. Cities based on GDP: #2 NYC, #3 LA. #4 Chi, #10 D.C., #11 Boston, #15 Atlanta, #16 S.F.

The top 10 International Relations undergreadutate programs | Foreign Policy are both on both coasts except #7, the University of Chicago.

Global Cities 2010: The Rankings | Foreign Policy

[plates]

As a whole I am not sure, but for individual cities some of them seem correct. But, for example, I don't see how Dublin is higher than Osaka. Maybe because it is the biggest city in the country and because it's in Europe? Otherwise I feel like Osaka with a larger population, higher GDP, and the most Western influence in Japan would put it higher. This is just one example.

[linicx]

It may have something to do with the country/county/region/area as Tokyo takes #1 in GDP and Population.

[chet everett]

While I know that the press coverage that these sorts of rankings result in lots of news stories the bottomline for these kinds of things is pretty meaningless. "Academic types" really are very good at looking backward but horrible at using data from the past to extrapolate what will happen in the future.

The way that power & money shifts around the world is far too complex to be boiled down to specific rankings. I liken this to the obsession of some to have specific rankings for schools. The decision of the US News to succemb to this disease (instead of relying ONLY on the broad "gold/silver/bronze/honorable mention" rankings...) is a big reason I no longer link to them...).

I think that it is pretty clear that certain cities have become more important globably and others exist in tiers that are more regional /local. It probably makes sense for some purposes to slice what makes a city globably prominent, but for some things this is beyond obvious -- LA = movie biz, NY = financial firms, Houston = oil, Boston = colleges, etc

Chicago is world leader in financial risk stemming from the policies and history of the CME & CBOT. That is something to be proud of but it is also specialized enough that very few people really understand what it means.

Frankly it is sorta weird to consider something like "Foriegn Policy" in the same way. As an academic pursuit it is rarely anywhere near as generally useful as economics or anything else that is based on "science" however dismal... I mean honestly when you think of those who've been US Secretary of State many very effective people have background not particularly associated with an academic background but of more a long association wih politics...

Honesty what matters is not really what any "ranking" says but things that are very complex -- the interplay between geography, history, wealth, crime, language, culture and dozens of other factors are not something that can be disected like the innards of a cell phone and copied by a competitor. There is an evolutionary trajectory of cities that is shaped by forces that shift all the time...

[linicx]

At this point I would rather look at something along the lines of FP, than at Forbes and some of the other sensational ambulance chasers. .

[edsg25]

Home much weight do you give Global Cities Index and other lists?

They tend to be interesting, may give you some clues to comparisons, and certainly have an element of fun about them, but personally i think they do far more harm than good. there is a fallacy in each and every one of them:

that what they are attempting to rank does not fall in any sort of meaningful rank order. It would be nice, I suppose, if things just lined up in a row, all nicely sorted. but they don't.

The real answer to your question may come from (IMHO) the most destructive list of all:

the dreaded USN&WR college rankings.

they have taken on almost biblical standing with many people, their rankings etched in stone. Yeshiva University in NYC and UIUC share the 45th ranking in the current rankings. Oh really, does this even make sense? do Yeshiva and U of I have anything in common, serve the same type of needs, are the same type of institutions?

Why do we have these lists? Because Americans love to see everything in the form of competition and a race and, let's face it, knowing who is NUMBER #1 is part of our DNA.

[linicx]

Factually, after The Steve-0 fell on his sword, and a couple other familiar names re-published the Forbes 2012 Super Silly Defective Data List I thought it might be refreshing to post a list from Chicago's very own. Gross Domestic Product and Population are facts. There is only one place in the world that has both the largest population and the largest GDP. And after all the arguments and rude remarks are hurled at each other, there is still ONLY one Illinois school that meets the criteria for its undergraduate program to be considered for the Top Ten International Relations | Foreign Policy post elementary school list.

This is not the worst thing that ever happened to Illinois in the last five years.

[Chicago76]

Originally Posted by linicx

It may have something to do with the country/county/region/area as Tokyo takes #1 in GDP and Population.

It has more to do with global connectivity than it does expressly adjusting for a particular country/region.

Example: A much larger economy may produce nearly all of its goods for local consumption. This would be a lack of direct connectivity to the global economy. The portion of goods/services that are imported/exported may overwhelmingly go to a cluster of 4-5 metros who tend to only trade/share with one another. This would be a lack of indirect connectivity. This cluster of markets generally behave in their own vacuum on an "island".

Meanwhile, a much smaller metro with a lower regional GDP might have a tremendous amount of their economy devoted to servicing other metros (direct connectivity). Also, their biggest partners in the provision of those goods and services might be London and NYC, which are the most connected cities on earth. So indrectly, they are very, very connected to a broad range of markets.

The first example would be Tokyo or Osaka. Japan is very insulated culturally and does not export/import as much as it formerly did. The largest banks tend to more domestically focused compared to London and NYC (Tokyo's two other global market peers), so Tokyo tends to rate lower than either.

The second example would be Dublin. There is a tremendous amount of global investment/real estate dollars flowing through Ireland. Dublin is a major intermediary in the investment market between London, NYC, petrodollars flowing out of the middle east, Switzerland, etc. It is nowhere close to Tokyo obviously, but its influence can exceed other Japanese markets that are larger than Dublin such as Osaka.

GaWC has a much more complex and academic approach to answering these types of questions than the Foreign Policy rankings. I subsribed to FP for a while, but it tends to be much more of a "pop academic" magazine than it is a academically rigorous review of any particular topic.

[linicx]

Chicago76, I actually tend to agree with you. I hoped if I scrounged around enough I might find something with substance. Mostly what I learned is that lists - at least to what I found so far - are over blown, without cited sources or very well researched. In fact I just read another list of college towns. The author had to be glowing like the energizer bunny as she wrote the wordy PR for each. Little did she know half of them were home to schools recently named in the Princeton Review Top 20 college party schools.

To get back on point, it is actually surprising what impact the lesser know towns indirectly have on the global economy.

[Zoness]

The lists are overblown imo. In my head I have what I consider the top cities in the world and its hard to reason with me about it. Haha. Though most people would agree with most of them.