Power Shift: Cities

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Crawford

GaWC is crap. It's really a "business connections to London" survey, which, if used as a proxy for relative city importance, already invalidates the results.

Maybe in 1860 or so, it would have made some sense, if just a survey for the Anglosphere. London has a significantly smaller economy than LA these days, and business networks are complex and not Anglosphere-oriented, necessarily.

yeah, i mean how does this capture someone conducting business over the phone in mandarin out of los angeles (which is actually what my friends do there)? i mean sure - london finance is mighty and the atlantic world even mightier but the blade-edge of global capital is flying low and fast over pacific whitecaps towards the sunset.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

London has the most connected city in the world by a large margin.

Per GaWC, which is crap.

London isn't more connected than Zurich, Geneva, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and Singapore, all of which are almost 100% internationally connected, unlike London which has a relatively large domestic market. And Brexit obviously increases London's domestic orientation. Singapore and Hong Kong are probably the most connected cities on earth because there's no country outside the city proper.

And "globally connected" isn't a proxy for relative city importance. Tokyo isn't particularly globally connected but is (arguably) as important as any city on the planet. Luxembourg is super-globally connected but doesn't have the economy of Tulsa.

The fact is that London hasn't been the globe's primate city in a century, and has an economy about the size of the Bay Area and is nowhere near the largest metropolitan economies. But GaWC and other UK-based entities are always trying to push this ridiculous narrative. London isn't even the most important city in Europe, and the UK is a very fringe power.

[Centropolis]

feels like we are just wondering out loud if grandpap still has it. he’s still got his desk at the office.

[Yuri]

You didn’t quote my whole post. I didn’t say anything about international connectivity, but connection only and I gave the best example available, which is air passengers (domestic + international).

London handles more than any other city in the world, followed by New York, Tokyo and Paris, which is incidentally the widely regarded as world’s 4 more important cities. Or at least those 4 will be mentioned by the most. That’s even more impressive for London as unlike New York it doesn’t have a massive domestic hinterland to cater.

Britain was the center of world’s economy up to WWII despite not being the world’s wealthiest country since the 1880’s. It’s not GDP alone that matters, specially measured in the very inflated USD.

London is not world’s primate city (nor any other city for that matter), but as today, it’s in a much better position vis-à-vis to New York than it was since the end of WWII and the demise of British economic empire. In short, London made gains while New York lost lots of ground since the 1990’s.

[Centropolis]

i dont know how this london vs new york thing goes because its not my bag. london has the best PR machine on the planet, though, absolutely breathtaking. compare this to the bay area for instance, which arguably has the worst relative to its legitimately spectacular qualities.

i’d hesitate to use air traffic as any kind of indicator since americans (and im guessing canadians too) from secondary markets use heathrow as a european gateway.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

You didn’t quote my whole post. I didn’t say anything about international connectivity, but connection only and I gave the best example available, which is air passengers (domestic + international).

# of air passengers is simply another economic input, factored into the overall economy. So it "counts," obviously, but no more than any other economic input. The fact is that London's metropolitan economy isn't close to the largest metropolitan economies, and hasn't been close for a long time.

Atlanta has the busiest airport on earth, but isn't the most important city on earth, obviously. Who cares if someone arrives by train, car, boat or plane? LA has the most cars on earth, so why isn't it the most important? Tokyo has the most trains on earth, so why not Tokyo?

Airport traffic is a function of location and hub terminals, nothing more. London is very well-located, like Dubai, so will always have heavy air traffic. Also it has crappier rail than the Continent so more domestic traffic. Amsterdam is a huge intl. air hub, but isn't a particularly important city. But it's well located and has an airline hub.

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Britain was the center of world’s economy up to WWII despite not being the world’s wealthiest country since the 1880’s. It’s not GDP alone that matters, specially measured in the very inflated USD.

GDP is all that matters, when comparing relative economic importance.

[CityAmateur]

Originally Posted by Crawford

GaWC is crap. It's really a "business connections to London" survey, which, if used as a proxy for relative city importance, already invalidates the results.

Maybe in 1860 or so, it would have made some sense, if just a survey for the Anglosphere. London has a significantly smaller economy than LA these days, and business networks are complex and not Anglosphere-oriented, necessarily.

Economy comparisons only make sense if we know what we are comparing. I don't know the answer to this but in concluding that LA' has the bigger economy just what do we mean by LA?

Do we mean the 34,000 sq mile "greater LA" CMSA? This is an area larger than the Republic of Ireland and over half - well over half - the size of England !!!

Do we mean the 4,850 MSA which itself is well over half the size of Wales !!!

I assume by London we mean the 607 sq miles of Greater London though I could be wrong.

I'm not being argumentative. I'm simply pointing to how unhelpful such comparsions are if we don't know what we are comparing.

[Centropolis]

i guess the question is - is london in a steeper relative decline than advertised post brexit? there was a whole slew of “acktually london is #1” stuff a few years ago in london/london adjacent global press - i mean really got ridiculous.

[dc_denizen]

Multi nodal cities (Boston , SF) suffer on these rankings

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by CityAmateur

Economy comparisons only make sense if we know what we are comparing. I don't know the answer to this but in concluding that LA' has the bigger economy just what do we mean by LA?

Do we mean the 34,000 sq mile "greater LA" CMSA? This is an area larger than the Republic of Ireland and over half - well over half - the size of England !!!

Do we mean the 4,850 MSA which itself is well over half the size of Wales !!!

I assume by London we mean the 607 sq miles of Greater London though I could be wrong.

I'm not being argumentative. I'm simply pointing to how unhelpful such comparsions are if we don't know what we are comparing.

Msa is not really relevant here

And using it exaggerates the geographic size of American cities

99% of the economic activity of an msa takes place in the urban area . La is maybe 2000 square miles with 15 million people .

[CityAmateur]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Msa is not really relevant here

And using it exaggerates the geographic size of American cities

99% of the economic activity of an msa takes place in the urban area . La is maybe 2000 square miles with 15 million people .

I agree and I am pointing to this to suggest that if we are comparing US MSA areas to non US ares we are not comparing like with like.

Put it like this. It would be easy to draw a 35,000 sq mile UK CSMA around London and thus hugely inflate its domestic economy....easy but pointless.

I am NOT engaged in UK V US here. Nor am I suggesting that US CSMAs are some kind of "glory grab" inflating figures. There are legit reasons for what they include. I'm simply pointing to this difficulty...when we say "LA metro economy what do we mean"? Over half the size of England? If so it's meaningless in international terms.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

99% of the economic activity of an msa takes place in the urban area . La is maybe 2000 square miles with 15 million people .

Combining the LA and Riverside UA's gets you 14.1M people on 2,281 sq. miles of land.

But those are 2010 numbers. The CB only calculates UA's on the actual decennial census results, no interim estimates, so that population figure is higher now and the land area may have squeaked up a tad, but likely not too much.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

i dont know how this london vs new york thing goes because its not my bag. london has the best PR machine on the planet, though, absolutely breathtaking. compare this to the bay area for instance, which arguably has the worst relative to its legitimately spectacular qualities.

i’d hesitate to use air traffic as any kind of indicator since americans (and im guessing canadians too) from secondary markets use heathrow as a european gateway.

No, they don’t. In fact, air traffic is North American biased as the only way people move around there. Also, every major European city have plenty of connections with dozens of North American cities.

So that makes no difference for London numbers. In fact, take North America out, you do little to London’s numbers while risk New York out of the list.

Moreover this allegedly London PR machine (that oddly seemed to be created from Tony Blair onwards...) would in fact London influence and power, not put it in question.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Crawford

# of air passengers is simply another economic input, factored into the overall economy. So it "counts," obviously, but no more than any other economic input. The fact is that London's metropolitan economy isn't close to the largest metropolitan economies, and hasn't been close for a long time.

Atlanta has the busiest airport on earth, but isn't the most important city on earth, obviously. Who cares if someone arrives by train, car, boat or plane? LA has the most cars on earth, so why isn't it the most important? Tokyo has the most trains on earth, so why not Tokyo?

Airport traffic is a function of location and hub terminals, nothing more. London is very well-located, like Dubai, so will always have heavy air traffic. Also it has crappier rail than the Continent so more domestic traffic. Amsterdam is a huge intl. air hub, but isn't a particularly important city. But it's well located and has an airline hub.



GDP is all that matters, when comparing relative economic importance.

Ok, you can do better. In fact I was sure you would come up with Atlanta...

Atlanta is an air hub. London, New York, Tokyo and Paris are mostly final destinations. Hub move from Atlanta, and its passengers traffic would be cut by half or 2/3 as it happens often in the US: St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, etc.

Air traffic is the best metric available. It states how many people, coming from far away, have relations or are interested in a given city. That goes regardless you wanting the US to be the centre of universe or London being an irrelevant village.

GDP is not all that matter. Money is God for some cultures, but society is much more complex than a yearly economic output, heavily deformed by volatile exchange rates. In any case, London/Southeast England would rank high up in a such list.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

No, they don’t. In fact, air traffic is North American biased as the only way people move around there. Also, every major European city have plenty of connections with dozens of North American cities.

So that makes no difference for London numbers. In fact, take North America out, you do little to London’s numbers while risk New York out of the list.

Moreover this allegedly London PR machine (that oddly seemed to be created from Tony Blair onwards...) would in fact London influence and power, not put it in question.

i think it was probably a great idea but the specific constant drumbeat of “london #1 nyc #2” bit started to get old.

[CityAmateur]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

No, they don’t. In fact, air traffic is North American biased as the only way people move around there. Also, every major European city have plenty of connections with dozens of North American cities.

So that makes no difference for London numbers. In fact, take North America out, you do little to London’s numbers while risk New York out of the list.

Moreover this allegedly London PR machine (that oddly seemed to be created from Tony Blair onwards...) would in fact London influence and power, not put it in question.

Cool Britannia was the Blair era advertising spin for the UK but Blair and his cronies despised what they saw as the van driving chav English working class and were in fact a self-defining metropolitan elite and this is part of the reason why there was so much "London boosterism"...unlike the rest of England there were all these nice French au pairs, Polish plumbers, Japanese bankers and quangocrats and all that lovely forex and insurance trading going on....the creation of the London city state mentality dates largely from then.

I worked throughout the 1990s in London and pre Blair it was what it still is....a hard-assed money town.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

i guess the question is - is london in a steeper relative decline than advertised post brexit? there was a whole slew of “acktually london is #1” stuff a few years ago in london/london adjacent global press - i mean really got ridiculous.

It won’t come nowhere close to New York brand decline. As late as the 1990’s, there wouldn’t be any list putting London nowhere near New York. It would be an utter absurd even thinking of it. Maybe a Chicago-tier city, at best.

Now, you are here, few years later, annoyed by those lists that not only consider New York and London, equals, but in most cases London is the chosen one.

London’s rise is one of the most remarkable things in urban geography. The city made an expected comeback, attract billionaires from all corners of the globe, Indians, Arabs, Russians, millions of immigrants and got this new powerful, global brand.

[Centropolis]

i just thought the marketing was overwrought.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

i think it was probably a great idea but the specific constant drumbeat of “london #1 nyc #2” bit started to get old.

I agree. But the fact we’re even debating this today, instead of NYC #1 (miles ahead) and London #4 or London #7, shows a major shift happened in the past 2 decades.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

It's interesting how there's no sizable Canadian city on Lake Erie...

Windsor, while the city proper is technically not on Lake Erie, it’s metro is, and as of this year, it’s metro now includes all of Essex County. So that is a metro of about 425K (2021 estimate) on the north shore of Lake Erie.