2023 World's Most Important Cities Ranked

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Note that your link is missing an l at the end


Pearl River Delta doing well on this list (rightfully so I suppose). Amsterdam seems like it maybe should be higher?

Thanks!

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Even post-Brexit, London is ahead when it comes to innovation and finance.

I get it; London has some clear advantages over Paris. It's more innovative, open, has Anglosphere advantages, has somewhat better flight connections and much stronger finance. Paris has advantages too. It has a stronger corporate base, a more iconic destination, most years the most visited city, better integrated with Europe, and has larger population and wealth.

My point isn't that one is ahead of the other, but that they're roughly even, so it's odd to always have London ranked higher, often considerably higher. Of course many of these lists have UK origins.

[ocman]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

it's some individual, yeah.

though it's the same individual who does detailed reviews of online maps. Not sure what his creds are...

His cred is about equivalent to any one of us coming up with a list. Can’t say that it’s more or less credible than a financial institution or publication, because their categories can be just as arbitrary and based on fandom, like including skyscraper count. None of this is truly scientific anyway. How one one even assign those category percentages on anything other than personal preference?

[MolsonExport]

One of the first lists that doesn't give Sydney and Melbourne disproportionately stratospheric ratings.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by sentinel

I'm sorry, struggling to understand where this list is coming from Is this a list from an organization or institute, or did an individual make this?

Shanghai and Beijing above Tokyo? Even GDP measurements don't support that. And Moscow above Washington DC? Pretty dubious.

Moscow above DC makes sense to me. Beijing isn't above Tokyo, only Shanghai.

[Crawford]

DC is hard to rank. On the one hand, it's the undisputed command center for the wealthiest, most powerful empire in the history of humanity. On the other hand, there isn't much of anything going on that isn't related to the first point. It's kind of a supersized Ottawa or Canberra. But it has the cosmopolitan edge equal to any world city. And that's almost entirely due to national power, and unrelated to the specifics of the city.

SF is tough, too. It's really Bay Area, not SF itself, that explains the region's outsized influence. And the great innovation-wealth loop is, like DC, heavily dependent on national power. It could reasonably be ranked the equal of any metro on earth, or outside the top 20.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Moscow above DC makes sense to me. Beijing isn't above Tokyo, only Shanghai.

How does Moscow above DC make sense? If cities are tied to their countries' importance, Russia isn't really doing that well in importance economically or culturally in 2023, the year of this ranking (I suppose currently as it stands, maybe things were different in different times).

I guess you could say Russia's capital/largest city has clout by being the dominant city in a way the US doesn't have a single dominant city (e.g. political, economic, cultural, educational, etc. with different cities playing different roles). And also legacy effects from being the capital of former 1 of 2 superpowers over much of the last century. Yeah, but then, if legacy effects of past superpower status were that important, then Rome should shoot to the top, since we're ranking year-by-year past glories shouldn't matter too much unless it's contemporary.

But would you consider Moscow a "A city of global importance, with outsized impact on the world" while say Toronto is "A city of very high importance, with significance impact outside of it's country"?

Also, China seems to dominate the list in terms of importance (I get it's big, but part of global influence is internationalism and some much smaller population countries are still much more international than big Chinese ones -- in terms of people traveling internationally, tourists, visitors, expats, cosmopolitan outlook etc.).

For instance, Shanghai, one of the most important cities according to the list is just behind Las Vegas (not a fair comparison, true), but also cities like Prague, Istanbul, Miami etc in international visitors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ional_visitors

China and Russia do seem a big inward-focused (if you say, well, the US is too, that's fair, but the US is still culturally/economically much more influential, not just pound-for-pound but still, despite stories about China's rise, currently the #1 economic, military power etc. with more global reach).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

How does Moscow above DC make sense? If cities are tied to their countries' importance, Russia isn't really doing that well in importance economically or culturally in 2023, the year of this ranking (I suppose currently as it stands, maybe things were different in different times).

What do you mean Russia isn't important? lol. They're at the center of the biggest global news story since the COVID outbreak.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

What do you mean Russia isn't important? lol. They're at the center of the biggest global news story since the COVID outbreak.

I guess if you count importance as importance, no matter the reason, even if it's notoriety. By that logic, Wuhan topped the list in important global cities in 2020. And I suppose, Baghdad was really important two decades ago in the 2000s and Saigon in the 70s in a sense too.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

I guess if you count importance as importance, no matter the reason, even if it's notoriety. By that logic, Wuhan topped the list in important global cities in 2020. And I suppose, Baghdad was really important two decades ago in the 2000s and Saigon in the 70s in a sense too.

Russia is not Iraq or Vietnam. It's still the seat of a major global player with enough to geopolitical sway left that it cannot be ignored (Ukraine war aside).

That said, DC, the hub of the worlds biggest economic and geopolitical power should be higher up on the list.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

I guess if you count importance as importance, no matter the reason, even if it's notoriety. By that logic, Wuhan topped the list in important global cities in 2020. And I suppose, Baghdad was really important two decades ago in the 2000s and Saigon in the 70s in a sense too.

Wuhan was the source of the outbreak, not the center of the media attention or discussion about the pandemic. Once it hit New York, Wuhan was effectively forgotten. The only reason Wuhan is ever discussed now is in discussions about the origins of the pandemic. I can't even name one single government official based in Wuhan, or remember what one looks like, and I pay pretty close attention to the news.

Baghdad became significant because of decisions made in Washington. Saigon became significant because of decisions made in Washington. The power based in those cities didn't become the center of global attention solely based on their own decision-making, unlike Moscow.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Crawford

DC is hard to rank. On the one hand, it's the undisputed command center for the wealthiest, most powerful empire in the history of humanity. On the other hand, there isn't much of anything going on that isn't related to the first point. It's kind of a supersized Ottawa or Canberra. But it has the cosmopolitan edge equal to any world city. And that's almost entirely due to national power, and unrelated to the specifics of the city.

Yeah I think DC is probably ranked about right. That one huge thing it has may skew people's perceptions but there are so many things that it lacks that many large national capitals, or even non-capital cities in its size range, have. It isn't really the biggest (or even top 2-3) business, entertainment, cultural, publishing, logistics, financial, tourism, or manufacturing hub in the country. And I don't even think it just lacks those things. It's probably that the out-sized role of government and its adjacencies actually crowds out some of those things, replacing things that other cities of its fairly large size have. A metro area of over 5 million that doesn't rank in the top 2-3 in its country in any of those areas would normally be pretty low in the ranking. So it kind of balances out.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by JManc

Russia is not Iraq or Vietnam. It's still the seat of a major global player with enough to geopolitical sway left that it cannot be ignored (Ukraine war aside).

Russia is not really a major economic player if we're being honest.

That said, DC, the hub of the worlds biggest economic and geopolitical power should be higher up on the list.

The criteria tho---DC ranks that high already because of it's geopolitical power but it's not the largest hub of economic activity of the US, that would be New York.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Russia is not really a major economic player if we're being honest.


The criteria tho---DC ranks that high already because of it's geopolitical power but it's not the largest hub of economic activity of the US, that would be New York.

Yes, Russia is relatively weak economically but geopolitically, they are still relevant and they posses the largest concentration of natural resources and raw materials. That makes Moscow relevant.

The Fed and the dollar are what makes the US the global economic heavyweight and that's centered in DC. The center of American capitalism and free market is New York.

[sentinel]

As mentioned previously and considering this list is apparently one individual's opinions of very dubious merits, I'm surprised anything on here is still being debated.

[Wigs]

[dimondpark]

er, actually this is not quite based on the creator's opinion exactly.

"The model uses more than forty regularly updated data sources to calculate importance, with economic output and impact given the highest weight:"

these scores are apparently tabulated based on 40 data sources which seems fairly varied imo. Not saying this list is 100% accurate, but he it's obvious he didn't just make up a list based on his preference. LOL

[ocman]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

er, actually this is not quite based on the creator's opinion exactly.

"The model uses more than forty regularly updated data sources to calculate importance, with economic output and impact given the highest weight:"

these scores are apparently tabulated based on 40 data sources which seems fairly varied imo. Not saying this list is 100% accurate, but he it's obvious he didn't just make up a list based on his preference. LOL

I’m not saying his data came out of thin air. Obviously, his categories need to be based on actual numbers. But what categories he chooses to included, and the weight given to one vs another, as well as the criteria that make up a category are all arbitrarily assigned, even if the numbers for each criteria are factually accurate.

For instances, why are skyscraper counts an important criteria? Or station count? Or even the whole category of modern urban characteristic? And why is it given more or less weight than population and demographics?

What if he included a category of, say, the most cars instead of the most stations? Or Teslas? Or billionaires, or the number of sports teams? Or size or presence of national military bases etc.. He could. And that’s the part of personal preference or biases of what he deems to be measures of importance. There’s doesn’t seem to be any process for how certain categories are included, and how they’re given a specific weighted percentage.

[SFBruin]

Delete.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by ocman

IFor instances, why are skyscraper counts an important criteria? Or station count? Or even the whole category of modern urban characteristic? And why is it given more or less weight than population and demographics?

Can you give an example where one of those criteria might have skewed the list to create a ridiculous ordering?