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I will disagree with this. Finance and trade are important factors, but not the main factors, in determining global city status.
For example, LA is a top-tier global city, but is definitely not a financial center. Frankfurt and Zurich are global financial centers, but are not top-tier global cities.
Frankfurt and Zurich are absolutely top tier global cities. Moreso than L.A.
What would be the justification for grouping HK with the other four cities? I'm not following. Is it just because of the impressive skyline and the incredible density in a few neighborhoods?
HK is pretty much a business city only, is more of a Singapore-style city-state than a conventional metro area, and is significantly smaller than the others. Its global cultural contributions are rather minor, its history is extremely short, and I can't think of anything truly iconic.
Of course you can't think of anything truly iconic. Even though there are plenty of iconic things there.
I would give London the slight edge because it is a "thinking man's city" with a sublime mix of high tech and history. I think it's the only major international city that conveys a big city vibrancy despite lacking (at least for now) a proper high rise CBD.
Without a doubt the best place to be in the world if you are well-connected or in a high status job, but just as equally not a good place to be if you don't fall within defined social brackets, in which case you are often marginalized and excluded. The pageantry is also not to everyone's taste. Infrastructure is clean-edged and modern though not quite up to the efficiency of Tokyo's. Another plus is that it is the only one among the five to be improving visibly. Only as recently as 2008 I would not have put London in the top three.
First impressions: 3.5/5 (the least impressive first tier tourist attractions among the top three - Tower Bridge, Tower of London etc).
Show me the money: 5/5 (sophisticated and eminently rewarding to live in).
Paris is the most layered and the most culturally elegant, though not quite as high brow or sophisticated as London's and not quite as diverse as New York's. The Haussmann style, fashion, museums, operas and shopping is why it's listed joint top with London. Negatives are cleanness, a worsening feeling social fractiousness and service culture.
First impressions: 4/5 (beautiful architecture and monuments).
Show me the money: 4.5/5 (a city that is as deep as it is beautiful).
Infrastructure is clean-edged and modern though not quite up to the efficiency of Tokyo's.
2. New York. Has the best human capital among all 5 (a big positive) but let down by equally big negatives: infrastructure/housing, struggling services, dismal sanitation and ghetto culture. Many of these are endemic problems which won't go away for the foreseeable future. New York is like an errant friend that I really want to like but about whom I am quietly appalled with and uncomfortable to be around for various reasons.
First impressions: 4.5/5 (ignoring the abomination that is Times Square, wall to wall attractions and cultural references)
Show me the money: 3.5/5 (can I go home now?)
3. Hong Kong and Tokyo. I have less experience in these cities than the others, but both are vibrant and exciting with plenty to offer. It's just that the others I find more impressive.
Last edited by Hightower72; 01-11-2015 at 12:46 AM..
Well, mostly Japanese cuisines, some western and korean restaurants and a little Chinese cuisines, probably very little chefs from other countries.
Actually Tokyo is claimed as the best place to eat in the world - not just from its amount of Michelin stars (267 restaurants have them, compared to 70+ for the other cities) or the fact it has 180,000 eateries (by comparison the others have about 15,000 a piece), but the range also. You'll find every cuisine in Asia, and almost every food in the world somewhere from Afghan to Zimbabwean (just like the others).
Also the quality has to be good due to the high levels expected in Japan - the city has the best whisky bars and steakhouses in the world and some of the best pasta chefs, not to mention many of the best French (50 restaurants have Michelin stars, not far off Paris's total), Italian, Spanish and Chinese restaurants. It's a damn good place to eat, and one of the few places where a Michelin star is awarded to a cheap hole-in-the-wall eaterie or market stall, and still comes under criticism for all the other thousands of places they haven't yet rated.
All your population numbers are very inaccurate. Paris and London have nearly twice the population of HK. NYC is bigger still, and Tokyo is like 5 times the size.
Are you using city proper only? That's completely irrelevant to the question. The City of London is then basically a village. Sydney and Melboune are villages. Paris is then a small city of 40 square miles. Buenos Aires is smaller still. I think the biggest city proper population in the world is some provincial "city" in China that's like half the size of California.
You obviously compare cities based on an apples to apples comparison, so something like metro area, urbanized area, or whatever. City boundaries are irrelevant.
I agree HK is more interesting than Singapore, but I still think it's closer in size, importance and role to a Singapore than to a NYC, London, Paris or Tokyo. I can't think of anything world-class in HK outside of business-related functions.
My numbers are accurate (just google it) and clearly you don't know what you're talking about once again. HK's population is not significantly lower than Paris's or London's, Paris is indeed a small city of 40 square miles btw. But if you compare the metros, HK's, London's and Paris's are comparable.
you need to read this, at least the intro Hong Kong - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
good luck
^What? There are plenty of decent restaurants there that provide quality food around 1000~1500 Japanese yen, that's less than 10 USD. Even when their currency was much stronger, it's still definitely not more than 20 USD.
city area is hard to define due to different city halls and countries using different criteria, plus varying jurisdictions thrown in.
Noone actually measures built up area due to the constantly changing area as a city grows.
City proper (the area a city hall administrates) tends to fall short of the built-up area, but in some cases small cities will administrate the area around, thus inflating the count.
City metro has completely different criteria in different countries, for starters the US uses commuting habits and will take in vast tracts of rural areas and wholly separate towns and satellites just because 10% commute to the next town along (with as low as 1-3% actually commuting into the central city itself). China also will take in large municipal areas of the countryside and satellite cities for jurisdictional purposes, and the fact it will be easier for those cities to claim rural land for development. Both countries have cities who count areas as large as small countries, despite the city itself being a fraction of that.
In terms of city proper:
London - The City boundaries is 7000, the City Hall definition is 8.6 million
NYC 8.5 million (5 boroughs)
Paris 2.2 million
Hong Kong 7.2 million
Built-up area+contiguous suburbs
London 13 million
NYC 17 million
Paris 11.8 million
Hong Kong 3.4 million (Hong Kong island + Kowloon)
Metro (immediate satellite towns):
London 15 million
NYC 18 million
Paris 12.1 million
Hong Kong - back to 7.2 million (in effect Hong Kong metro and city proper are one and the same)
US-style metro:
NYC 22 million
London 21 million-23 million
Paris 12.3 million (notice how consistent Paris is in defining built up urban areas without straggling low density suburbs or satellites)
Hong Kong - now this can get vast. A US style metro would add in the world's biggest city to Hong Kong, the contiguous area of Shenzhen-Dongguan-Guangzhou-Foshan counts 34 million people, and a metro of 45 million in an area smaller than LA. HOWEVER due to the border, even though it's porous geographer's prefer not to count the city, at which case HK's city proper, metro and US style metro are an unchanging single count of 7.2 million. If however you do count it, it's thus a whopping 41-52 million.
NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH A MEGALOPOLIS, the Pearl River Delta city:
No.
You probably need to have extra information or contacts. There are plenty of not so expensive restaurants in Tokyo. Tokyo is definitely cheaper than Paris and London in terms of pretty much everything.
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