London, New York And Hong Kong dominate World Cities

Latest results from researchers measuring the world’s “alpha cities” network suggest that established giants London and New York are being joined by Hong Kong and could one day form a global cities triad that will dominate the globe.

“London and New York define a duopoly that constitutes a case apart - the global cities dyad [pair] par excellence,” said the report. “Hong Kong is consistently number three (not Tokyo) and is definitely gaining in importance and approaching the super alpha-plus level. If current trends continue, it is likely that the world city network will be dominated by a global cities triad in the very near future.”

And the key finding of the 2008 report is that while London and New York continue to constitute a case apart - rapidly being joined by Hong Kong - the alpha levels are strongly represented by western Pacific rim cities, a pattern accentuated by the rapid elevation of Sydney, Shanghai and Beijing.

We live in an age of ‘list-mania’; there is so much information available that ordering selected topics has become popular entertainment

Professor Peter Taylor

Department of Geography

Loughborough

The Globalisation and World Cities (GaWC) Research Network, based at Loughborough University in the UK, classifies the globe’s leading cities using a list of key providers in four main fields: banking, advertising, accountancy and legal services and measures the connectivity between cities.

Professor Peter Taylor, of the Department of Geography at Loughborough, is the inventor and director of the GaWC. He explained: “We live in an age of ‘list-mania’; there is so much information available that ordering selected topics has become popular entertainment.”

GaWC has been rating world cities for more than a decade, starting with a study of how London was connected to other world cities through its advanced producer service firms. The original study ranked cities in alpha, beta, gamma status and which proved popular with readers.

The rise of cities

The latest report concerns only the alpha cities and ranks them in three grades below the super-alpha cities of London and New York.

But a lot of things have happened since the most recent data was collected in the first half of 2008: place-based public finance has had to come to the rescue of network-based private finance.

The nationalisation (part, full or implicit) of financial services has brought territories back to the centre stage of the world economy at the expense of networks and their flows. Relations between cities and states are being readjusted in the latter’s favour as globalisation faces its greatest challenge, says Professor Taylor.

All world cities will have mixtures of cutting-edge economic functions but these need not just be advanced producer services

Professor Peter Taylor

Department of Geography

Loughborough

Collaboration between the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the GaWC has made possible a much larger data collection in the most recent research.

The United States had six alpha world cities in 2000, but Miami and Atlanta dropped out in 2004, with Los Angeles and San Francisco missing from the 2008 list, leaving just two alpha world cities, New York plus Chicago, hanging on as an alpha-minus city.

The rise of cities from emerging markets is very clear - in the plain alpha category they were represented only by Sao Paulo in 2000 and 2004 but Seoul, Moscow, Mumbai, Buenos Aires and Kuala Lumpur have joined to constitute the majority of plain alpha cities in 2008.

The emerging cities’ rise from 2004 to 2008 is largely at the expense of leading western European cities: Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Zurich move down to alpha-minus level although Milan, Madrid and Brussels consolidate their alpha level status.

In the former Comecon countries of eastern Europe whose economic privatisations in the 1990s led to their services-led integration into the world economy, Warsaw appeared to be leading city by 2008; Berlin through its absence from the lists confirms the failure of its bid to become a major global city.

Finally, cities with relatively stable trajectories should not be ignored: Paris and Singapore stay alpha-plus, Toronto remains alpha, while Mexico City, Taipei, Jakarta, Stockholm, Bangkok and Dublin are alpha-minus cities in all three lists.

Professor Taylor concluded: “All world cities will have mixtures of cutting-edge economic functions but these need not just be advanced producer services. The key is to find economic niches but without being vulnerable to economic specialisation. Milan and its design portfolio, Singapore and its logistics portfolio and, outside alpha cities, Los Angeles and its entertainment portfolio, and Houston and its energy portfolio are all important examples of world cities despite their contrasting positions in the world city network.”