Top 100 Most Influential World Cities (purchasing, quality of life, living)
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Status:
"See My Blog Entries for my Top 500 Most Important USA Cities"
(set 3 days ago)
Location: Harrisburg, PA
1,051 posts, read 974,976 times
Reputation: 1406
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For fun, I have looked up the urban area population per Demographia for some of the cities we are discussing
Top 100 Cities ON my List (Post #1)... Land area in Square Miles
Cities being strongly considered for Addition:
Nairobi 6,020,000...329
BrasÃlia 3,313,000...392
Cologne-Bonn* 2,085,000...301
Munich 1,928,000...186
Zurich 815,000...95
Cities being strongly considered for Removal:
Changsha 4,242,000...289
Xiamen 4,773,000...276
Belo Horizonte 5,159,000...497
Essen-Düsseldorf* 6,125,000...1,036
Kinshasa 13,528,000...183
*This makes me NOT want to remove Essen-Düsseldorf and replace with Cologne
Possible Cities to add to List (someone would need removed):
Pune 7,764,000...251
Bandung 7,065,000...188
Addis Ababa 5,320,000...229
MedellÃn 3,720,000...93
Vancouver 2,395,000...353
San Juan PR 2,061,000 876
Perth 1,978,000...604
Hamburg 1,976,000...307
Havana 1,610,000...123
Lyon 1,413,000...178
Auckland 1,333,000...202
Dublin 1,306,000...178
Helsinki 1,282,000...199
Oslo 813,000...92
Possible cities to Remove (these cities are on Post #1):
Prague 1,158,000...119
Stockholm 1,436,000...164
Vienna 1,809,000...130
Frankfurt 1,904,000...255
Warsaw 1,935,000...211
Brussels 1,990,000...306
Budapest 2,395,000...385
Birmingham 2,605,000...231
Lisbon 2,656,000...367
Manchester 2,727,000...244
*Technically Amsterdam is 1,140,000...122
Rotterdam-The Hague is 2,770,000...397
But I am combining them.
Other Potential Cities to add to List:
Guadalajara 5,253,000...313
Jeddah 4,366,000...487
Kuwait City 4,022,000...280
Caracas 2,878,000...114
Doha 1,827,000...222
Mecca 1,813,000...174
Jerusalem 1,466,000...84
Panama City 1,202,000...87
Other cities NOT on List, and probably NOT being seriously considered at this time:
Phoenix 4,602,000...1,250
Denver 2,813,000...681
San Diego 3,200,000...740
St. Louis 2,247,000...990
Pittsburgh 1,693,000...922
Cleveland 2,774,000...1,379
Charlotte 2,075,000...1,193
Portland, OR 2,091,000...538
Tampa-St. Petersburg 2,782,000...1,004
Austin 1,862,000...528
Calgary 1,326,000...231
Abu Dhabi 1,270,000...411
So, I am noticing that the USA cities are significantly less dense than their European counterparts.
Other Strong Candidates:
Vancouver
Perth
Auckland
Doha?
Vancouver is also a very strong city and perhaps the next on the list. Perth and Auckland are also strong candidates as well. Perhaps I could swap three of the Somewhat Questionable cities for it? Thoughts? I am thinking Shenyang, Ahmedabad, and Xi'an? Idk, I need to think about it. Doha is another possible candidate. All I know is that Vancouver, Perth, and Auckland have a decent number of millionaires. But otherwise including them will overrepresent their countries. Man, I didn't realize how difficult it would be constructing this List... I'm at a point where I might just keep List 1 and make the four swaps (BrasÃlia, Zurich, Nairobi, Munich [removing Belo Horizonte, Changsha, Kinshasa, and Xiamen]. I guess I could make swaps for Vancouver, Perth, Auckland too by removing Shenyang, Ahmedabad, and Xi'an, but these I am not fully 100% convinced just yet. I think there is a definitely a case. Anyway, I'd certainly appreciate everyone's own Top 100 List to compare with mine. Maybe showing totals by region would be helpful too.
Addis Ababa has been brought up many times, however I think I prefer Nairobi, personally. If someone would like to argue in favor of Addis Ababa over Nairobi I would be glad to listen.
Guys, honestly I've spent over an hour trying to move these cities around the various categories. I am pretty lost here. So, yeah. This really isn't easy. Apologies if anyone gets offended. It is what it is. I am trying my best to be unbiased.
China again feels underrepresented with only 13 (or 11 if the additional cities of Shenyang and Xi'an are removed), I honestly don't even know how many cities China should have, or which ones.
At this time, I have also decided probably not to replace Düsseldorf with Cologne. Demographia seems to indicate that Düsseldorf-Essen is much larger than Cologne-Bonn (North Rhine-Ruhr vs. South Rhine-Ruhr). Idk, what do you guys think?
So, my immediate reaction to your first list was remove Minneapolis and Detroit from the top 100, and add Nairobi in place of Kinshasa, but didn't fixate on that task.
But to your actual criteria, these are my thoughts.
1. As your base, start with GDP. That melds population and the influence of wealth very well.
2. Bonus points if it makes more of its money from trading than the average city because trading exerts greater influence in the economy/world. Basically "Trade" over "Made" (mfg city). The exact weighting would be a point of discussion.
3. Bonus points for cultural influence: Entertainment, religion, education, cultural heritage, fashion, innovation and trend-setting. I'm not sure how to measure that, but I know it when I see it.
4. Subtract points for being in a closed society. North Korea is the poster child, but also China, Saudi Arabia, Iran. Smaller subtractions for countries that are not quite as closed. Turkey and Russia are less open than they were.
5. Subtract points for being in a failed state, or what you described in an earlier post as "Host Nation Fragility". That's a very valid criteria. However, more emphasis on long-term fragility than short-term fragility. So, a city in a country that fell into a mess only a year or so ago, say Damascus circa 2014, would lose fewer points on that score than Kinshasa, because Congo (Zaire) has been a failed state for 40+ years.
I think this scoring system would explain why many people believe a lot of those interior, manufacturing-hub Chinese cities don't really belong on the list. It would also goose Vancouver's points just a bit being a Pacific port city. Enough for the top 100? I don't know.
Don't over-value geographic balance. New Zealand really shouldn't be considered for 2 cities on this list. Being that far "out of the way" really does impact overall influence.
Okay, so I have been thinking of creating a list of the world's top 100 most powerful cities. I have also created a list of 40 runner-up cities. These are NOT necessarily in order, but by region/country. Feel free to let me know which changes you would make, or which cities are missing! Thanks!
South America: (7)
Bogotá, Lima
São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte
Buenos Aires, Santiago
Europe (including Turkey [Trigger Warning]): (25)
London, Birmingham, Manchester
Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon
Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam-Rotterdam
Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf
Rome, Milan
Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Warsaw
Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev
Stockholm
Athens, Istanbul, Ankara
Asia (excluding China): (29)
Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka
Seoul, Busan
Taipei
Ho Chi Mihn City, Hanoi
Jakarta, Surabaya
Dhaka, Bangkok, Manila
Kuala Lumpur, Singapore
Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad
Karachi, Lahore, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Dubai
RUNNER UPS: (40)
Vancouver
Phoenix, Denver, San Diego, Baltimore, St. Louis, Pittsburgh
Guadalajara
Panama City
BrasÃlia, Porto Alegre
Montevideo
Casablanca, Nairobi, Cape Town
Baghdad, Jeddah, Doha, Kuwait City
Pune, Surat
Bandung
Sapporo
Perth, Auckland
Suzhou, Qingdao, Zhengzhou, Dalian, Harbin
Dublin, Zurich, Naples, Munich, Hamburg, Oslo, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Bucharest, Baku
I need to visit Boston one of these days. I live in Houston Right now.
I'm not completely certain about every city on the Completely Certain list. Cities I question, but I'm not necessarily recommending for complete removal are:
Tianjin. It looks to mostly be a subsidiary of Beijing.
Also, I wonder if Guangzhou and Shenzhen should be considered one entity. With the future absorption of Hong Kong into the PRC, all 3 might be considered one entry eventually.
Quote:
Originally Posted by g500
"Quite Certain" Cities (21)
2. Amsterdam-Rotterdam
3. Ankara
4. Athens
21. Chengdu
24. Chongqing
27. Detroit
30. Düsseldorf
31. Frankfurt
34. Hangzhou
35. Hanoi
36. Ho Chi Minh City
43. Karachi
55. Manchester
59. Miami
67. Nanjing
74. Riyadh
76. Saint Petersburg
78. Santiago
80. Seattle
96. Warsaw
98. Wuhan
This category inserts some doubt, so let me name the ones I believe deserve even greater doubt, but may in the end remain on the list.
Ankara
Chengdu
Chongqing
Detroit
Dusseldorf
Wuhan
Saint Petersburg might be a candidate for moving up to the "Certain" list.
Quote:
Originally Posted by g500
"Somewhat Certain" Cities (9)
16. Budapest
22. Chennai
44. Kiev
49. Lahore
51. Lisbon
62. Monterrey
66. Nagoya
86. Stockholm
95. Vienna
Lisbon might be the weakest entry here. It would depend on how much attention Brazilians give to Portuguese cinema, tv, and literature.
Quote:
Originally Posted by g500
"Slightly Certain" Cities (6)
28. Dhaka
39. Hyderabad
61. Minneapolis
72. Prague
90. Tehran
91. Tel Aviv
I actually believe Tel Aviv and Tehran deserve inclusion in the category of Somewhat Certain.
Kyoto, which isn't on your list anywhere should be considered for inclusion in this category given its historical influence on Japan.
Sorry, you talk for too long and I don't find there to be much value in continuing this discourse beyond this post. You can self righteously walk away on an internet forum and pretend you've "won" and I am not interested in convincing you further, but unless you write and publish an influential journal or website on city rankings that would encourage me to put this time and effort into lobbying for the inclusion of a city I happen to have property in, I don't really care what you end up deciding.
Acknowledgements of personal bias aside, I have a second property in Asia and have spent several years living there. I am not a white westerner who only thinks western cities are important; my own top 10 cities would be dominated by Asian cities (Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, honorable mentions to Taipei, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Dubai and Mumbai in the top 20) as they outpace in many respects western cities outside of the Big 3 (New York, London, Paris).
But sorry, a tier 3 Asian city is not even near the influential level of Vancouver if you do any sort of academic reading in this field. It can employ 200,000 Bangladeshis in a factory but if it doesn't produce anything to effect changes in architecture, urban planning, industrial design, art, music, cuisine, and has significantly fewer articles written about it and discussing it, it doesn't matter. The internet and the daily global exchange of information, both cultural and academic, has made "influence" more about knowledge transfer than what happens on a day to day basis on the ground in 2020.
While I acknowledge your position is valid from a certain angle, I stand by mine. People who bother to enter this thread and the OP can make do with what is presented. If you think you wish to throw out Surabaya, Changsha, Busan and Ahmedabad as some Top 100 city instead of Vancouver, Zurich, Perth and Copenhagen then all the power to you; do get back to me when you get this published anywhere of any significance however, and is actually respected and cited. I have provided enough material - still there is more I didn't bother to link - to support my claims without needing to argue on a public internet forum about it. Do you, aside from grand claims of travel and dialogue?
Your claims of how "factor X doesn't matter" is as naive as "anglo-centric" bias, you are just too obstinate to see it for yourself. Who made you definitive arbiter of what metric matters, your claims of talking to more people around the world? If OP (g500) wants to play it by manitopiaa's multi-criteria evaluation, then state so and just collaborate on a list together over PM and publish it here. You don't need someone else's input.
But at the end of the day I hope the OP is fully aware s/he is publishing an anglo-centric list in an anglo-centric (US) forum against anglo-centric publications around the world. To portray yourself as completely impartial to the region, culture and language one's audience is misguided at best and sanctimony in its most insidious form.
For the OP, I think you mean well and have an unique position for a list, but I strongly recommend you actually stop listening to either of the two loudest voices in this thread, collate some published data around the world and present your findings to support your evidence. I trust you would actually find it to be more insightful and meaningful than asking on a forum (that doesn't even necessarily cater to academics in the field of urban planning or geography, check how dead the planning subforum is) and listening to claims of about "visiting 55 countries" and then claiming to be some sort of an authority figure.
There is really no need to pander to some quixotic quest for geographic inclusivity, such as X amount of NA cities, X amount of European cities, etc. I've seen respectable publications of Top 10 cities that have just New York, London and Paris flanked by 7 Asian cities. I've seen other equally valid publications using different weight criteria list out majority European cities with two Asian cities included in, by pure numerical merit adhering to the weighed factors rather than forced inclusion for geographic equity.
There also is no strong need to include X amount of cities for representation. Some countries are just heavily centralized in the way they have developed; in turn, they may not have many great cities worthy of a Top 100 inclusion, but their primate city is a Tier A+ Alpha World City.
Yes, this means if you end up with 9 Chinese cities and 15 American ones, 2 in the UK and 5 in India, it's totally fine if it matches the criteria you set out to look for. Remember, rank 1 isn't = rank 100, it's important to make that distinction. So if in the top of this list you have the Londons, Parises and Beijings, but relatively few cities of these places' respective countries in the remaining list, that's entirely fair and you are doing the country justice by ranking their top city so high.
Toronto would hardly be in consideration for the Top 20 for me, but there is enough there in Montreal and Vancouver to populate the rest of the Top 100. Just because China, the UK and France are bigger, doesn't mean they should respectively get "X" amount of cities as divided up by their GDP and population automatically.
Perhaps because their primate and capital cities are so significant that they draw and pull away from their tertiary cities, leading to weaker influences in those. This is one reason countries like Germany, Canada and Australia probably shouldn't have any cities near the Top 10, but would have a few in the Top 100.
I would still find an exclusion of Vancouver questionable in any Top 100 list, but it's not my list and as long as it's backed up by more than just dialogue and words but actual data. This forum is already littered with hot take lists and I think yours already had far more effort and thought put into it so I will check back later to see what you've finally come up with. The manitopiaa fellow needn't directly reply, I won't be reading (though he may try and continue to lobby you again for the inclusion of his favorite cities so maybe take my advice to do your own research on existing published material into account ).
And you accuse me of writing too long! I stopped at the first sentence, when it became clear you have no good retort beyond "it's a Top 100 city because I own property there!"
A city of $140b GDP (40th in North America) with 1 Global 1000 company, no political capital status, no notable cultural influence, and a low population (2.3m) is not Top 100 material. Maybe Vancouver should spend more time creating its own Amazon, Boeing, Costco, Microsoft, Starbucks behemoths, and less time crowing about rather unimpressive "feats."
Vancouver has a high quality of life and expensive housing. Well, so does my little town of Alexandria, Virginia. That alone doesn't mean Alexandria, Virginia is Top 100. It's absurd how angry and ill-tempered some boosters get. All I'm asking for is objectivity. If I lived in Vancouver, I still wouldn't recommend it because it doesn't have the statistics to back it up.
Last edited by manitopiaaa; 06-21-2020 at 03:21 AM..
Status:
"See My Blog Entries for my Top 500 Most Important USA Cities"
(set 3 days ago)
Location: Harrisburg, PA
1,051 posts, read 974,976 times
Reputation: 1406
Kettlepot, I can't rep you, but I agree Tianjin and Detroit should drop down a category (they are in separate categories now obviously). St. Petersburg and Tehran should upgrade (again they are also in sep. categories).
Disagree with Lisbon and Tel Aviv, I like them right where they are. I think Chongqing, Chengdu are fine in their category. Wuhan, Düsseldorf, and Ankara could possibly drop a category, maybe, but I think they are okay. I might actually drop Minneapolis a category, perhaps.
With Kyoto, I have always assumed was included with Osaka (1 hour driving, 55.6 km or 34.5 miles). But, some may disagree, and that is of course fair. Mayne rename it Osaka-Kyoto? (Only hyphenated city area on my original Top 100 is Amsterdam-Rotterdam as I dropped Pretoria from Johannesburg-Pretoria)
I would mostly disagree and still separate Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. I mean obviously Shenzhen and HK could very easily be combined geographically. But it is still treated as an international border crossing and therefore separate labor market (can anyone clarify? Or give updated into on this?). Google says No Routes Found. I think I it was 44 min, 34 km, 21 miles from Shenzhen to HK. There is also significant political instability and friction. Also they are SO powerful separately too. There is no other analog on earth really. Unless downtown Philadelphia sat where Paterson, NJ is today, then maybe we would have a similar situation on whether to combine or seperate, yet then again its a complicated and mired political situation between HK and Mainland China, whereas NY and NJ (in this assumptive scenario) have no such political strife/closed borders/animosity.
Greatly appreciate your swaps. I would change Edinburgh to Dublin. I don't know if I would include BOTH Montevideo and Caracas. I'd probably lean more towards Caracas, even though Venezuela largely has a completely failed economy and political turmoil. Caracas with 3 million people, still has a major influence over Latin America and perhaps even the Caribbean, is in a massive country with the world's largest oil reserves, and also helps the List better represent South America (currently Post #1 only has 7 SA cities). It's a shame what has happened to Venezuela, but I too think it can recover someday. Also, on your list, I'd probably also change Montevideo to BrasÃlia. Adding Hamburg would give Germany 5 cities, which is too much, I'm sorry I just can't logically make it work in my mind at this time. Idk maybe drop multi-nodal Düsseldorf for Hamburg (giving Germany: Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, and Hamburg)??
Addis Ababa just seems too small and underdeveloped at this time (I really mean Ethiopia as a whole). I have no doubt in 10-20-30 years of its possible inclusion given the country's rapid growth and development. Why did I include Kinshasa originally? Because it is a mega city with over 13 million. Addis Ababa, with about 5 million, was actually never even on my radar. Sorry but I'm most likely gonna have to pass on it. I'm probably wrong excluding it given its potential status. I guess I think its premature to include it now? Also, what is up with Addis Ababa having no GawC ranking? Anyone know?
Anyway, I really appreciate your list and I'd rep you if I could! As you can hopefully see, this isn't easy.
I would REALLY encourage other posters to take my List # 1 (Post #1) and post their additions and removals. It's the only way to build consensus!! Or if you think the List is too messed up, please create your own!
Montpillier34, yeah I had briefly considered Geneva for awhile, but ultimately it is way too small. Although Geneva is often is described as a potential world capital. I think it's unfair for Switzerland to have 2 cities. That's my honest and blunt answer. I do not think it is glaringly wrong or terrible to include it, and would especially like to encourage you to create a Top 100 (or post whatever additions and removals you feel are necessary to my Post #1).
As it stands right now I'm only 100% convinced on the Brazil swap (dropping Belo Horizonte for BrasÃlia) as well as dropping Changsha for Zurich. I am very very close to dropping Kinshasa for Nairobi (Kinshasa is so massive though). And, I am very close to dropping Xiamen for Munich. I am also strongly considering dropping multi-nodal Düsseldorf for Hamburg. I also want to consider adding Vancouver, Perth, Auckland, and Caracas, but I'm just not fully-convinced yet. That would require (I guess?) dropping Xi'an, Shenyang, Ahmedabad, and another city (Busan or Surabaya or perhaps another). Also, as previously stated, other strong candidate cities are Oslo, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Dublin, maybe Guadalajara, and Addis Ababa (I'm not TOTALLY against it, I just think its a bit premature). Like I said, we can't fit 120 cities into 100 slots, unfortunately. Some really great cities won't make the cut. Adding cities is easy, cutting cities is hard.
That would give Europe 24
Asia EX China+HK 31
China+HK 14
Australia+NZ 2
N America 18
S America 7
Africa 4
ORIGINALLY MY LIST WAS Europe 23
Asia EX China+HK 31
China+HK 15
Australia+NZ 2
N America 18
S America 7
Africa 4
Last edited by g500; 06-21-2020 at 03:46 PM..
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