[mr.x]

I knew someone would post about this here...I'm currently doing a paper that has to do with these global city rankings, and to an extent it is a little arbitrary but it does say something about a city if it's among the rankings of several of these lists or even all of these types of studies.

There are about five of these studies, and this Chicago ranking is just one of them. There's also one done by the Longborough University in the UK, the Globalization and World Cities Research Network with its latest ranking done in 2008, which lists cities in alpha, beta, and gamma. Both Vancouver and Montreal in the Gamma+ category (Seattle and Brisbane are also among the cities in Gamma+).

Alpha++ (New York, London); Alpha + (includes Singapore, Sydney); Alpha (includes Toronto, Chicago, Kuala Lumpur); Alpha- (i don't remember).

The Beta and Gamma levels have +, regular, and - subcategories too.



Again, out of all five rankings, Vancouver is only mentioned in the Longborough. We lucked out, IMO. Then again, Montreal is listed in only two of these surveys (in the Foreign Policy/Chicago ranking and the one by Longborough) and Seattle is only listed in Longborough.

On the other hand, do note that Vancouver is among the top of list in every Livable City survey. So there is merit to that, that the city is indeed 'very livable'.

Of course, there's every opportunity for the Vancouver region to devolve by continuing to indulge itself into a pig mud hole of smug, self-satisfaction, and tree hugging to the point that it becomes uncompetitive. The cities that make it to all of these lists run on hard work, progress, and daring vision...which is something this region lacks collectively.



What makes a Global City according to Foreign Policy?

So what makes a Global City? Not size alone, that's for sure; many of the world's largest megalopolises, such as Karachi (60), Lagos (59), and Kolkata (63), barely make the list. Instead, the index aims to measure how much sway a city has over what happens beyond its own borders -- its influence on and integration with global markets, culture, and innovation. To create this year's rankings, we analyzed 65 cities with more than 1 million people across every region of the globe, using definitive sources to tally everything from a city's business activity, human capital, and information exchange to its cultural experience and political engagement. Data ranged from how many Fortune Global 500 company headquarters were in a city to the size of its capital markets and the flow of goods through its airports and ports, as well as factors such as the number of embassies, think tanks, political organizations, and museums. Taken together, a city's performance on this slate of indicators tells us how worldly -- or provincial -- it really is.

I'll end it at there, the Longborough GAWC is a little different.