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Post-Lehman, the financial aspect of most of these rankings are based on heavily contorted indices that often bear little resemblance to reality. This is largely thanks to global 'easing', HFT algorithm-driven 'ramp ups' and tailored statistics - in effect a futile attempt to paper over the fact that western economies are in a protracted economic depression.
This seems to be far more true of the economic ranking of US cities than those of other nations, so I generally take them down one or two notches each when considering these lists.
The rankings are based on an averaging of many criteria, and is complied to reflect one person's or or one organization's arbitary discretion about how to weight each category of elements being measured. For example, are Economic Power, Wealth and Competitiveness weighted equally? Why, or why not? How is each of those measured, and are factors within those criteria of measurement correctly weighted? Are there criteria that are not counted at all? To judge the weight of each of those criteria is completely arbitrary, and results in a completely arbitrary list of the cities.
A person fairly knowledgeable in foreign affairs and global economics probably could have sat in his quiet office on a rainy Saturday afternoon, and complied an equally valid ranking, without even looking anything up. Like, how much do you need to know to put Buenos Aires ahead of Riga, and if two cities are fairly close together, is there really any differnce between San Jose and Tunis? Am I supposed to go the rest of my life assuming that Perth is a gamma-city but Wroclaw is only a city of high sufficiency, on this basis if this ranking, and cite Saskia Sassen it in bar-room arguments?
This list is nothing but an egocentric trip into self-indulgence, which is what most ranking lists are.
I would not doubt for a second that this list has been debated several times in this forum. I can't find those posts though, and so I'm compelled to bring up the question, do all you world travelers, social scientists, economists, political analysts, and demographers out there agree or disagree with these categorizations?
Maybe this is the thread you are thinking of...
Best regards, sincerely
HomeIsWhere...
Washington, New York, Chicago will be the most significant urban vectors in the next decade
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