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But here's the rub. This ranking is based solely on the office locations of the companies listed below:
Ranking of GAWCs Most Strategic Global Cities, 2012: North America 1 New York 3 Chicago 6 San Francisco 7 Los Angeles 16 Miami 20 Washington DC 24 Toronto 26 Mexico City 27 Dallas 39 Boston 45 Houston 46 Palo Alto
The criteria I use in my list is simply financial and political centers, because I think they can be more definitively measured than things like culture and innovation. My personal list of most 'strategic' cities:
1. Washington
2. New York
3. Chicago
4. San Francisco
5. Toronto
6. Mexico City
7. Boston
I'm not too comfortable moving beyond this point, after the political capitals and the prominent financial centers comes the group that don't fit in either category (Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Montreal, Vancouver, Miami) plus Ottawa which gets points for being the capital of a mid-level power but its level of clout compared to the rest is unclear. I'm not convinced of any order for them, other than that L.A. is the leader among the American cities in the category.
The criteria I use in my list is simply financial and political centers, because I think they can be more definitively measured than things like culture and innovation. My personal list of most 'strategic' cities:
1. Washington
2. New York
3. Chicago
4. San Francisco
5. Toronto
6. Mexico City
7. Boston
I'm not too comfortable moving beyond this point, after the political capitals and the prominent financial centers comes the group that don't fit in either category (Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Montreal, Vancouver, Miami) plus Ottawa which gets points for being the capital of a mid-level power but its level of clout compared to the rest is unclear. I'm not convinced of any order for them, other than that L.A. is the leader among the American cities in the category.
Why just financial and political instead of a broader overview?
Why just financial and political instead of a broader overview?
Well first of all I think those two categories are the most responsible for effecting people's lives. Politics is a no-brainer while financial institutions determine the prices of goods, the value of the money in your bank account, and our over all economic well-being. Plus, these criteria are easier to measure because we have numbers. It's a lot more difficult to measure the influence of cultural trends.
But if I had a Foreign Policy-type list that tries to measure and gives equal weight to a broader set of criteria, the list would certainly look very different.
Well first of all I think those two categories are the most responsible for effecting people's lives. Politics is a no-brainer while financial institutions determine the prices of goods, the value of the money in your bank account, and our over all economic well-being. Plus, these criteria are easier to measure because we have numbers. It's a lot more difficult to measure the influence of cultural trends.
But if I had a Foreign Policy-type list that tries to measure and gives equal weight to a broader set of criteria, the list would certainly look very different.
I was thinking corporate headquarters for any number of large industries (major corporate and/or regional headquarters), higher education (college rankings, papers produced/published, awards, graduating class sizes), major infrastructure choke points/trunk lines (trade volumes, infrastructure maps), scientific/technological research and development (patents filed, papers published?), and global cultural exports (sales, receipts, charts, etc.) would all be pretty valuable and measure to some extent. There are probably some others I'm missing.
I was thinking corporate headquarters for any number of large industries (major corporate and/or regional headquarters), higher education (college rankings, papers produced/published, awards, graduating class sizes), major infrastructure choke points/trunk lines (trade volumes, infrastructure maps), scientific/technological research and development (patents filed, papers published?), and global cultural exports (sales, receipts, charts, etc.) would all be pretty valuable and measure to some extent. There are probably some others I'm missing.
That would certainly be an interesting list and if anyone has the time and patience, I encourage them to tackle it. But ultimately I think finance and political power are in a tier of their own ahead of the categories you mentioned. For example, I've never really been sold on the idea that corporate HQ locations are a good indicator of much at all. And you've seen the L.A. vs NYC cultural exports thread, I'm really uninterested in trying to get involved in measuring that stuff. Even if you did measure the sales, receipts, and charts of a particular city, I think that sort of misses the point of cultural power. Plus there's the added task of deciding how to weigh these categories against each other, is being a major center of infrastructure as significant as having the New York Stock Exchange? I'm tempted to say no. At the end of the day the White House and Wall Street are the most consequential bodies in daily life (in the U.S.), the others are either lesser or of undeterminable importance.
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