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I have a hard time digesting Chicago and Toronto are behind Boston and Washington.
And Chicago at 12 followed by Vancouver at 14? Since when Vancouver has remotely the "finance" Chicago does? It is probably less important than Raleigh, NC.
Well Washington has been rising in importance ever since the financial crisis. This is due to the government's increased role in the markets.
Boston is sometimes unfairly overlooked when it comes to financial services power. Below you can see the six largest cities by assets under management, along with the number of firms they have in the Top 300 asset managers in the US:
1. NYC 101 firms totaling $11.670 trillion under management
2. Boston 26 firms, $5.563 trillion
3. Los Angeles 13 firms, $2.965 trillion
4. San Francisco 12 firms, $1.711 trillion
5. Philadelphia 6 firms, $1.589 trillion (95% is from Vanguard)
6. Chicago 17 firms, $1.508 trillion
This number is from 2012, and the last time I checked, the top 3 money managers in Boston (State Street, Fidelity, Wellington) alone had grown enough to push the total to well over $6 trillion under management. It's a very, very powerful financial services hub.
I have a hard time digesting Chicago and Toronto are behind Boston and Washington.
And Chicago at 12 followed by Vancouver at 14? Since when Vancouver has remotely the "finance" Chicago does? It is probably less important than Raleigh, NC.
In the GFCI 16 rankings, Chicago, Toronto, Boston, and D.C. are within ≤ 3 points of one another out of ~ 700 total points. I'd call that a wash. It's basically:
NYC/London
.
HK/Singapore
.
.
SF/Tokyo/Zurich/Seoul
.
Boston/DC/Toronto/Chicago/Geneva/Vancouver...and then a whole lot more < 700 pts.
In fact, of the top 83, SF was the only U.S. city that actually increased in its numerical rating compared to the GFCI15 rating.
In the GFCI 16 rankings, Chicago, Toronto, Boston, and D.C. are within ≤ 3 points of one another out of ~ 700 total points. I'd call that a wash. It's basically:
NYC/London
.
HK/Singapore
.
.
SF/Tokyo/Zurich/Seoul
.
Boston/DC/Toronto/Chicago/Geneva/Vancouver...and then a whole lot more < 700 pts.
In fact, of the top 83, SF was the only U.S. city that actually increased in its numerical rating compared to the GFCI15 rating.
No wonder Cathay Pacific has 3 daily flights on HKG-JFK and 1 daily on HKG-EWR.
In the GFCI 16 rankings, Chicago, Toronto, Boston, and D.C. are within ≤ 3 points of one another out of ~ 700 total points. I'd call that a wash. It's basically:
NYC/London
.
HK/Singapore
.
.
SF/Tokyo/Zurich/Seoul
.
Boston/DC/Toronto/Chicago/Geneva/Vancouver...and then a whole lot more < 700 pts.
In fact, of the top 83, SF was the only U.S. city that actually increased in its numerical rating compared to the GFCI15 rating.
Pretty impressive to see cities like SF, Boston and DC in the top 10 when Finance is not even the major economic driver or focus for those cities. SF especially, no wonder the city pumps out the economic numbers it does on a consistent basis.
Pretty impressive to see cities like SF, Boston and DC in the top 10 when Finance is not even the major economic driver or focus for those cities. SF especially, no wonder the city pumps out the economic numbers it does on a consistent basis.
San Francisco has been a large financial center on the West Coast for many decades. With tourism it's the city's bread and butter. Biotech and tech are other sectors but those are found further south down the peninsula.
Yeah, Philadelphia is as much a financial center as Washington, D.C., quite possibly even more so, but this goes back to the big question of as to why and what purpose these rankings continue to exclude Philadelphia for.
For a place like say, Atlanta, Dallas, Miami -- I can understand why they are omitted -- they are not global heavy financial centers or major centers of commerce (in finance) and play a tertiary role as financial centers in their own countries.
I'm pretty sure Philadelphia is not more of a financial center than Washington DC.....
San Francisco has long been known as the New York of the West for many reasons, its financial sector one of them. Both Wells Fargo and Bank of America, among other large banks, came out of SF and both were HQ'd there until recent times, one still is. That's on the commercial banking side.
Then you have the investment banks, and SF has enough of an investment banking presence, particularly among tech, biotech, finbanking, and healthcare.
Then you have the trading desks, which has traditionally been a large part of SF's scene. Enough of a scene to warrant "Wall Street" type movies like Kevin Bacon in Quicksilver, which is set in 80s SF. Every building in the financial district has trading desks for firms of all sizes.
There was also the large Pacific Coast stock exchange, now an equinox gym of course.
Then you get into the world of private equity (big firms like TPG are HQd in SF, however, all of the major firms keep major secondary offices there). Hedge funds like Farallon Capital.
And of course SF has an absolute lock on Venture Capital and is to VC what New York is to I Banks or law firms. Well that is of course if you include SF as an offshoot of what is down in Menlo Park and Palo Alto, however, the city itself does have a huge presence and many of the fund managers live in the city, not down in the valley (such as Arthur Rock, who also keeps his office in the financial district).
So not sure I'd put SF "well above" Boston or Chicago, but in the traditional ways we think of financial centers, I'd really say in my mind despite these "rankings" that you have New York, which trades places with London as center of the world every so often, then you have SF, Chicago, and Boston, and really despite the rankings and sphere of influence, I wouldn't say DC is a "financial center". Nor LA. Nor anyone else. Just those 4 - their financial districts are reasonably referred to as financial districts and "feel" as such too.
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