2023 World's Most Important Cities Ranked

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by MAC123

I know we like to say things like "The US built this" or "China built that", but I'd like to remind that the vast, vast majority of skyscrapers are built by developers, not countries. Their construction had absolutely nothing to do with whether a country wanted to prove itself or not. (Besides the exceptions of course, buildings like the Burj and whatnot.p

Yes, but there are a number of really-talls in the U.S. that were government backed, or at least government boosted. There's probably at least one in most U.S. cities.

But also, to your point, the large number of skyscrapers in the U.S. is indeed market driven. Which goes back to the point above that it is a defensible indicator of a city's "importance".

[craigs]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yes, but there are a number of really-talls in the U.S. that were government backed, or at least government boosted. There's probably at least one in most U.S. cities.

Los Angeles City Hall, at 453 ft., is no longer a "really tall" building, but it was the tallest in California from 1928 until 1965.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by craigs

Los Angeles City Hall, at 453 ft., is no longer a "really tall" building, but it was the tallest in California from 1928 until 1965.

Having been there in person and went up to the top of LA City Hall, I concur. Especially having been up to the to the US Bank tower and skyslide earlier that day!

Still, like Buffalo it's one of the best city halls in North America.

[nito]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Overall it's definitely a better ranking than the GaWC was

I do wonder whether people actually dive into the methodology, but succinctly, the GaWC research paper that is often quoted – but misunderstood – looks at measuring a city within the global economy, based on the networks of advanced producer service enterprises; the greater the concentration, the higher the output figure. It isn’t a definitive approach as to how to ‘rank’ a world city – the authors acknowledge this and are actually a bit peeved by the boosterism and misinterpretation – and there are instances where some cities could be higher/lower based on other definitions and interpretations of what a world city ought to be measured by. Nonetheless it is a credible piece of research that has been a cornerstone of urban geography studies for the past two decades.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Everything you listed is a result, just like skyscrapers. Embassies and consulates locate to places where people and/or state power is located. Population locates places with opportunity. Skyscrapers are built in places with high land values. These can all be defended as metrics to gauge a city's "importance".

Skyscrapers are relevant to the conditions within a city and these vary wildly. Dubai having as many supertalls as all North American cities combined doesn’t help us gauge importance. Madrid, Warsaw and Frankfurt all have towers taller than anything in Paris La Défense, what importance can we gauge from that?


The problem with a lot of these lists/rankings is that people’s interpretation of a world city can vary quite vary for a lot of reasons – economic, religious, political, ceremonial, financial, cultural – and trying to create one list to rule them all is bound to face accusations of bias from some quarters regardless of transparency and relevance. For me, the core variables need to incur the fewest questions around accuracy, relevance and interpretation in terms of an international world city. A potential list in my view would incorporate the following:

• Foreign-born population
• International tourist count
• Foreign-born HNWI’s
• International student number
• Embassies/consulates
• Capital city status
• International air destinations
• Cultural (could never define this, maybe foreign participation in sports clubs, perhaps icon recognition/ranking)
• International Association meetings
• Foreign bank branch count
• Finance market volumes (stock/derivatives/currency/bullion)
• Professional service firm presence (GaWC)

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by craigs

Los Angeles City Hall, at 453 ft., is no longer a "really tall" building, but it was the tallest in California from 1928 until 1965.

I haven't dug into the stats but I suspect it's fairly common for the tallest building in a U.S. city to be either a vanity project by a private entity, or a publicly backed project. This how some cities got their tallest towers at the peak of white flight in the 1960s and 1970s.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I haven't dug into the stats but I suspect it's fairly common for the tallest building in a U.S. city to be either a vanity project by a private entity, or a publicly backed project. This how some cities got their tallest towers at the peak of white flight in the 1960s and 1970s.

This is probably the case for a lot of cities worldwide.
However, overall, skyscrapers everywhere are built for economic reasons, thus they may be used as a proxy indicator for land values in a given city.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yes, but there are a number of really-talls in the U.S. that were government backed, or at least government boosted. There's probably at least one in most U.S. cities.

But also, to your point, the large number of skyscrapers in the U.S. is indeed market driven. Which goes back to the point above that it is a defensible indicator of a city's "importance".

And when they aren't built because of market conditions, it shows that people consider them such an important indicator of importance (or prestige) that they're willing to spend money on them without any direct return.