Canada Rankings

[jamincan]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

A lot of Westerners think of Dubai as some oil wealth paradise for Arabs and wealthy whites from elsewhere. In reality, it's the premier trading hub for the Middle East and often for South Asia as well.

If Mumbai or Karachi were better cities and India and Pakistan run by more functional and less corrupt governments, Dubai might be less important. But that's not the case. So a lot of business between Europeans and Indians is done in Dubai. This is something North Americans really don't understand. The closest analogy is maybe Taiwan and China.

It's also one of the primary gateways for business to Africa.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

People mistake this list as some sort of ranking of cities on urban quality or something to that effect. It's not. It's about a given city's place in the global economic pecking order. By those measures I do think it overranks Canadian cities a bit.

It’s even more specialized than that. It’s a ranking based on the number and strength of connections made between a city and the other 706 cities on this list solely in the fields of accountancy, advertising, banking/finance and law.

My guess is that they probably use some kind of diversity index like Shannon’s D, where number of contracts between two cities is enumerated and the business value in $ of each contract indicates the strength of that connection.

I can see why cities like Toronto and Sydney, which are the HQs of very large funds that have trillions of dollars of global investments under management score as high or higher than San Francisco, which is richer and economically more influential than both of them.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

It’s even more specialized than that. It’s a ranking based on the number and strength of connections made between a city and the other 706 cities on this list solely in the fields of accountancy, advertising, banking/finance and law.

.

As such, a ranking of cities based on their role of the energy sector would probably see Calgary climb up the list substantially.

[Nouvellecosse]

Well that's basically what my earlier comment was about when I said if that's what they're measuring perhaps they should be measuring something more relevant. I mean, most of the defenses of the list so far seem to be suggesting that the reason people don't agree with it is that it isn't measuring the things we consider important. Maybe it's useful for a few people in a very industry specific context, but if it's not telling us anything about the quality or overall success of the cities and is only measuring success in one narrow specific area, then why should we care about it? Which raises the question, is an irrelevant but accurate list really much more useful than a relevant but inaccurate list? I mean, the takeaway seems to be that we should disregard the list for a completely different reason than the one for which we're currently disregarding it. Well... ok then.

[esquire]

^ The list wasn't meant to be all things to all people, or some kind of final judgment on cities. It focuses on the characteristic of globalization. Many great places to live are not really that prominent as global hubs... I don't see why that should be controversial or a big deal in any way.

Even the alpha+ list makes sense to me... Tokyo is mammoth and a major city of course, but is it really as globally connected as NYC and London? Doesn't seem like it to me.

[Nouvellecosse]

It absolutely shouldn't be controversial or a big deal. That was my point. A list that most people don't find relevant is best ignored, not made the subject of controversy or debate.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

It absolutely shouldn't be controversial or a big deal. That was my point. A list that most people don't find relevant is best ignored, not made the subject of controversy or debate.

If anything is irrelevant, it's what we discuss on this forum here. Great urban experiences of various cities is interesting [to us] but esoteric dinner party conversation, not something organizations pay tens of thousands of dollars on a report for*.

I'm pretty sure that the GaWC research group doesn't write grants and hire postdocs to comb through reams of economic data just so that it can pump out this yearly ranking list.

I think this is the icing on the cake they use for publicitiy, and their real mission is to probably answer questions like "what global cities saw the fastest growth in trade with the Kuala Lumpur metropolitan region between 2018-2019?" for clients like the Kuala Lumpur Board of Trade to lobby their national government for things like trade missions or expanded air service, or things like that.


*If you're a huckster like Richard Florida, you can somehow turn this into a marketing tool.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Acajack

As such, a ranking of cities based on their role of the energy sector would probably see Calgary climb up the list substantially.

Maybe. I think the point of focusing on finance, law, accounting and advertising - besides easier data collection - is that you can use data from these industries as proxies for the value of trade conducted between pretty much any other industry.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

If anything is irrelevant, it's what we discuss on this forum here. Great urban experiences of various cities is interesting [to us] but esoteric dinner party conversation, not something organizations pay tens of thousands of dollars on a report for*.

I couldn't disagree more. Healthy, vibrant, functional, and interesting cities play a huge role in the quality and success of the lives of people around the world. Within the last decade or so, more people have lived in urban areas globally than in rural areas for the first time even, while this has been the case in the most developed countries for many decades. We don't just talk about "great urban experiences" on this forum in the sense of visiting a city and finding it enjoyable or not as a tourist. We talk about very relevant aspects such as transportation, density, crime, governmental structure, availability of housing and services, etc. all of which are directly relevant to the lives of normal people. The farthest thing from "esoteric dinner party conversation".

[JHikka]

I thought we agreed ages ago that these lists are mostly nonsense?

[esquire]

^ I wouldn't say that they're nonsense. I think there is value. Imagine someone who is not that familiar with cities outside of their own country wanted a crash course on how important global cities rank generally... you could do much worse than that list in trying to gain a basic understanding.

To cast doubt on the entire list because you don't like the way Edmonton, Suzhou or Montevideo are specifically ranked is missing the point. And that always seems to be the criticism, finding some outlier example in a group of gamma cities or whatever and using it to try and cast doubt on the entire list.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Maybe. I think the point of focusing on finance, law, accounting and advertising - besides easier data collection - is that you can use data from these industries as proxies for the value of trade conducted between pretty much any other industry.

It's probably very difficult to find metrics that allow for a true apples-to-apples comparison. So these are I assume the best ones they've found.

There are likely some fairly major cities who seriously underperform in certain spheres of activity, so I would assume that their methodology takes that into account.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ The list wasn't meant to be all things to all people, or some kind of final judgment on cities. It focuses on the characteristic of globalization. Many great places to live are not really that prominent as global hubs... I don't see why that should be controversial or a big deal in any way.

Even the alpha+ list makes sense to me... Tokyo is mammoth and a major city of course, but is it really as globally connected as NYC and London? Doesn't seem like it to me.

Possibly the list is slanted somewhat toward places that someone stuck in a geography department at a third-tier "red brick" university in Leicestershire would daydream about living in.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

If anything is irrelevant, it's what we discuss on this forum here. Great urban experiences of various cities is interesting [to us] but esoteric dinner party conversation, not something organizations pay tens of thousands of dollars on a report for*.

I'm pretty sure that the GaWC research group doesn't write grants and hire postdocs to comb through reams of economic data just so that it can pump out this yearly ranking list.

I think this is the icing on the cake they use for publicitiy, and their real mission is to probably answer questions like "what global cities saw the fastest growth in trade with the Kuala Lumpur metropolitan region between 2018-2019?" for clients like the Kuala Lumpur Board of Trade to lobby their national government for things like trade missions or expanded air service, or things like that.

I think it's more about helping multi-nationals decide where to locate specific hubs for their activities.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It's probably very difficult to find metrics that allow for a true apples-to-apples comparison. So these are I assume the best ones they've found.

There are likely some fairly major cities who seriously underperform in certain spheres of activity, so I would assume that their methodology takes that into account.

Yeah, that's it. I think it's very difficult to find reliable, accessible and frequently updated macroeconomic data to answer the kinds of questions a lot of people would want to have answered about cities, so you have to make do with this.

And I don't want to pooh pooh their work. Trying to obtain and validate this kind of data from different countries and industries, each of which has different standards in terms of record-keeping and the questions they ask is immensely difficult. This is why this research is conducted by an academic team, and not some guy in his basement. Even with this, I'm sure you can drive a bus through some of the holes in their methodology, but it's not because they're deliberately lazy or incompetent at their jobs.

[Echoes]

I'm frankly shocked to see Saskatoon on the Sufficiency list.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I couldn't disagree more. Healthy, vibrant, functional, and interesting cities play a huge role in the quality and success of the lives of people around the world. Within the last decade or so, more people have lived in urban areas globally than in rural areas for the first time even, while this has been the case in the most developed countries for many decades. We don't just talk about "great urban experiences" on this forum in the sense of visiting a city and finding it enjoyable or not as a tourist. We talk about very relevant aspects such as transportation, density, crime, governmental structure, availability of housing and services, etc. all of which are directly relevant to the lives of normal people. The farthest thing from "esoteric dinner party conversation".

Well, what can you really do with someone's subjective interpretation of a city's vibrancy, health or success? Successful for whom? Based on what? What else are we missing?

These can be interesting, even thought-provoking discussions, but they're never going to be empirical or replicable so they're going to be of less value for decision-makers.

Being able to measure trade in good X from one year to the next and compare it with another city might be dry, and definitely not perfectly measured, but at least you can benchmark yourself and measure your progress year-over-year. There's more inherent value in that for businesses.

[theman23]

Originally Posted by harls

Does it?

Let's close the thread then.

I never suggested that, and you cut off 4/5s of my post where I gave my opinion and contributed to the discussion.

Originally Posted by Andy6

Possibly the list is slanted somewhat toward places that someone stuck in a geography department at a third-tier "red brick" university in Leicestershire would daydream about living in.

But thats explicitly not what they're ranking.

[MolsonExport]

I am so, so glad that this guy is back! Alarmforce: "Can I Help You?!?!?"

[svlt]

Those who hate the list, can you suggest a better list for us to all peruse and critique? There are dozens of published city lists out there. I think you can poke just as many holes in any of them.

Are city lists then completly pointless? Well, no, because people fund hundreds of different academic think tanks around the world to produce these lists. It's a banal argument to basically ask others to ignore a list with this level of weight and influence because you don't like its placements. You can do that if forumer A just wrote their 10 best cities, but not something as long running as the GaWC.