Forbes has just released its ranking of the world’s most economically powerful cities (h/t Aleem Kanji). The rankings draw heavily from two recent studies - PricewaterhouseCoopers’ estimates of “gross regional product” and MasterCard’s global “centers of commerce” index. Here’s the top 10.
London
Hong Kong
New York
Tokyo
Chicago
Seoul
Paris
Los Angeles
Shanghai
Toronto
The story is here, rankings here.
We’ll be updating with a comparison to our own mega-region rank shortly. But I’d put NY ahead of Hong Kong. I think Los Angeles belongs higher. I’m glad to see my newish hometown crack the top 10 where it belongs.
August 6th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
“I’m glad to see my newish hometown crack the top 10 where it belongs.”
-That was all you Richard.
I have a new place in my heart for Chicago. Just visited for the first time in July - an excellent experience I would recommend to others.
August 11th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I would be curious to see a breakdown of this in both per capita terms and by source of economic power. My hometown (Los Angeles) is the second largest city in the US, but is nearly bereft of large corporate headquarters (Charlotte shames us). I realize this is a poor metric, but we are talking economic power in this survey and the question really becomes where the economic power then lays. Once the aerospace industry shrunk, we were left with entertainment, and while this industry gets a lot of press, it isn’t necessarily as big as its shadow. Los Angeles is really a city of small to medium businesses, and I wonder how that plays out relative to cities that either spawn or host corporations with broader reach. My guess is that Los Angeles makes the grade because of a very generous definition of region, and the activity flowing through the port, making the city maybe more a gateway to commerce instead of a center of commerce.