"World city" redirects here. For other uses see World city (disambiguation).

A global city (also called world city or sometimes alpha city or world center) is a Specialized City deemed to be an important node point in the global economic system. The concept comes from geography and urban studies and rests on the idea that globalization can be understood as largely created facilitated and enacted in strategic geographic locales according to a hierarchy of importance to the operation of the global system of finance and trade.

The most complex of these entities is the "global city" whereby the linkages binding a city have a direct and tangible effect on global affairs through socio-economic means.1 The terminology of "global city" as opposed to megacity was popularized (not coined or invented) by the sociologist Saskia Sassen in reference to her 1991 work "The Global City: New York London Tokyo"2 though the term "world city" to describe cities which control a disproportionate amount of global business dates to at least May 1886 to a description of Liverpool by the Illustrated London News.3 Patrick Geddes also used the term "world city" later in 1915.4 Cities can fall from such categorization as in the case of cities that have become less cosmopolitan and less internationally renowned in the current era e.g. Kaliningrad Russia; Thessaloniki Greece; and Alexandria Egypt. Contents 1 Criteria 1.1 Economic characteristics 1.2 Political characteristics 1.3 Cultural characteristics 1.4 Infrastructural characteristics 2 Studies 2.1 GaWC studies 2.1.1 Alpha 2.1.2 Beta 2.1.3 Gamma 2.2 Global Cities Index 2.3 Global Power City Index 2.4 World City Survey 3 Cities ranked by category 4 See also 5 References 6 External links Criteria

Global City or world city status is seen as beneficial and because of this many groups have tried to classify and rank which cities are seen as 'world cities' or 'non-world cities'.4 Although there is a consensus upon leading world cities5 the criteria upon which a classification is made can affect which other cities are included.4 The criteria for identification tend either to be based on a "yardstick value" ("e.g. if the producer-service sector is the largest sector then city X is a world city")4 or on an "imminent determination" ("if the producer-service sector of city X is greater than the producer-service sector of N other cities then city X is a world city").4 Economic characteristics The New York Stock Exchange Corporate headquarters for multinational corporations international financial institutions law firms conglomerates and stock exchanges that have influence over the world economy. Significant financial capacity/output: city/regional6 GDP7 Stock market indices8/market capitalisation Financial service provision;9 e.g. banks accountancy Costs of living10 personal wealth; e.g. number of billionaires11 Political characteristics The Palace of Westminster Active influence on and participation in international events and world affairs; for example Washington London Paris Tokyo Berlin Rome Moscow Canberra or Beijing are major capitals of influential nations or unions. Hosting headquarters for international organizations (World Bank) NATO headquarters A large proper population of the municipality (the centre of a metropolitan area typically several million) or agglomeration Diverse demographic constituencies12 based on various indicators:13 population habitat14 mobility15 and urbanisation16 Quality of life standards17 or city development18 Expatriate communities Cultural characteristics The Louvre in Paris International first-name familiarity. For example New York City and Los Angeles are commonly referred to as just "New York" and "LA" respectively without needing to specify its state or location within the United States. Renowned cultural institutions (often with high endowments) such as notable museums and galleries notable opera orchestras notable film centres and theatre centres. A lively cultural scene including film festivals (such as the Toronto International Film Festival) premieres a thriving music scene nightlife an opera company art galleries street performers and annual parades. Several influential media outlets with an international reach such as the BBC Reuters The New York Times or Agence France-Presse. A strong sporting community including major sports facilities home teams in major league sports and the ability and historical experience to host international sporting events such as the Olympic Games FIFA World Cup or Grand Slam tennis events.19 Educational institutions; e.g. universities20 international student attendance21 research facilities Sites of pilgrimage for world religions (for example Mecca Jerusalem or Rome) Cities containing World Heritage Sites of historical and cultural significance22 Tourism throughout City as site or subject in arts and media television film video games music literature magazines articles documentary City as an often repeated historic reference showcase or symbolic actions Infrastructural characteristics Shinkansen An advanced transportation system that includes several highways and/or a large mass transit network offering multiple modes of transportation (rapid transit light rail regional rail ferry or bus) for example the London Underground. Extensive and popular23 mass transit systems prominent rail usage24 road vehicle usage25 major seaports26 A major international airport that serves as an established hub for several international airlines for example London. Airports with significant passenger traffic and international passengers traffic27 or cargo movements. An advanced communications infrastructure on which modern trans-national corporations rely such as fiberoptics Wi-Fi networks cellular phone services and other high-speed lines of communications. For example Seoul and Tokyo are known as the digital and technology capitals of the world.citation needed Health facilities; e.g. hospitals medical laboratories Prominent skylines/skyscrapers (for example Chicago or Hong Kong)28 Cities' telephone and mail services airport flights-range traffic congestion availability of water train facilities nearby parks hospitals libraries police stations etc. Studies GaWC studies

The first attempt to define categorize and rank global cities using 'relational data' was made in 1998 by Jon Beaverstock Richard G Smith and Peter Taylor who all worked at that time at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom. Together they established the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. A roster of world cities was outlined in the GaWC Research Bulletin 5 and ranked cities based on their connectivity through four "advanced producer services": accountancy advertising banking/finance and law.5 The GaWC inventory identifies three levels of global cities and several sub-ranks. This roster generally denotes cities in which there are offices of certain multinational corporations providing financial and consulting services rather than denoting other cultural political and economic centres.

The 2004 rankings acknowledged several new indicators while continuing to rank city economics more heavily than political or cultural factors. The 2008 roster similar to the 1998 version is sorted into categories of "Alpha" world cities (with four sub-categories) "Beta" world cities (three sub-categories) "Gamma" world cities (three sub-categories) and additional cities with "High sufficiency" or "Sufficiency" world city presence.

The 2008 roster of leading Alpha Beta and Gamma world cities is reproduced below; see the source for the complete roster:2930 Alpha Alpha++ world cities: London New York Alpha+ world cities: Hong Kong Paris Singapore Tokyo Sydney Milan Shanghai Beijing Alpha world cities: Madrid Moscow Seoul Toronto Brussels Buenos Aires Mumbai Kuala Lumpur Chicago Alpha world cities: Warsaw So Paulo Zurich Amsterdam Mexico City Jakarta Dublin Bangkok Taipei Istanbul Rome Lisbon Frankfurt Stockholm Prague Vienna Budapest Athens Caracas Los Angeles Auckland Santiago Beta Beta+ world cities: Washington Melbourne Johannesburg Atlanta Barcelona San Francisco Manila Bogot Tel Aviv New Delhi Dubai Bucharest Beta world cities: Oslo Berlin Helsinki Geneva Copenhagen Riyadh Hamburg Cairo Luxembourg Bangalore Dallas Kuwait Boston Beta world cities: Munich Jeddah Miami Lima Kiev Houston Guangzhou Beirut Karachi Dsseldorf Sofia Montevideo Nicosia Rio de Janeiro Ho Chi Minh City Gamma Gamma+ world cities: Montreal Nairobi Bratislava Panama City Chennai Brisbane Casablanca Denver Quito Stuttgart Vancouver Zagreb Manama Guatemala City Cape Town San Jos Minneapolis Santo Domingo Seattle Gamma world cities: Ljubljana Shenzhen Perth Kolkata Guadalajara Antwerp Philadelphia Rotterdam Amman Portland Lagos Gamma world cities: Detroit Manchester Wellington Riga Guayaquil Edinburgh Porto San Salvador St. Petersburg Tallinn Port Louis San Diego Islamabad Birmingham Doha Calgary Almaty Columbus Global Cities Index

In 2008 the American journal Foreign Policy in conjunction with consulting firm A.T. Kearney and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs published a ranking of global cities based on consultation with Saskia Sassen Witold Rybczynski and others. Foreign Policy noted that "the worlds biggest most interconnected cities help set global agendas weather transnational dangers and serve as the hubs of global integration. They are the engines of growth for their countries and the gateways to the resources of their regions."31

In 2010 the index was updated and the top thirty ranked were:3233 Rank City Score 1 New York City 6.22 2 London 5.86 3 Tokyo 5.42 4 Paris 5.35 5 Hong Kong 4.14 6 Chicago 3.94 7 Los Angeles 3.90 8 Singapore 3.45 9 Sydney 3.44 10 Seoul 3.40 11 Brussels 3.29 12 San Francisco 3.26 13 Washington D.C. 3.25 14 Toronto 3.13 15 Beijing 3.12 16 Berlin 3.03 17 Madrid 3.02 18 Vienna 2.96 19 Boston 2.78 20 Frankfurt am Main 2.78 20 Shanghai 2.78 22 Buenos Aires 2.73 23 Stockholm 2.71 24 Zurich 2.68 25 Moscow 2.61 26 Barcelona 2.57 27 Dubai 2.56 28 Rome 2.56 29 Amsterdam 2.54 30 Mexico City 2.41 Global Power City Index

The Institute for Urban Strategies at The Mori Memorial Foundation in Tokyo Japan issued a comprehensive study of global cities in 2009. The ranking is based on six overall categories "Economy" "Research & Development" "Cultural Interaction" "Livability" "Ecology & Natural Environment" and "Accessibility" with 69 individual indicators among them.34 This Japanese ranking also breaks down top ten world cities ranked in subjective categories such as "manager researcher artist visitor and resident." Rank City Score Best category (position) 1 New York City 330.4 Economy (1.) Research & Development (1.) 2 London 322.3 Cultural Interaction (1.) 3 Paris 317.8 Livability (1.) Accessibility (1.) 4 Tokyo 305.6 Economy (2.) Research & Development (2.) 5 Singapore 274.4 Economy (5.) Cultural Interaction (5.) 6 Berlin 259.3 Livability (2.) 7 Vienna 255.1 Ecology & Natural Environment (3.) 8 Amsterdam 250.5 Accessibility (3.) 9 Zurich 242.5 Ecology & Natural Environment (2.) 10 Hong Kong 242.5 Economy (4.) 11 Madrid 242.5 Ecology & Natural Environment (7.) Accessibility (7.) 12 Seoul 242.1 Research & Development (4.) 13 Los Angeles 240.0 Research & Development (5.) 14 Sydney 237.3 Ecology & Natural Environment (9.) 15 Toronto 234.6 Livability (5.) 16 Frankfurt am Main 232.9 Accessibility (5.) 17 Copenhagen 231.7 Economy (9.) Livability (9.) 18 Brussels 229.9 Livability (8.) 19 Geneva 229.7 Ecology & Natural Environment (1.) 20 Boston 226.2 Research & Development(6.) World City Survey In 2010 the London based consultant firm Knight Frank LLP together with the Citibank published a survey of world cities.3536 The Wealth Report 2010 which includes the World City Survey assesses four parameters economic activity political power knowledge and influence and quality of life. The list aimed to rank the world's most influential cities. New York tops the list in Ecomomic activity political power and knowledge and Paris tops it in quality of life. London and Paris get the same aggregate ranking of 149 making them de facto world's 2nd and 3rd most prominent cities.37 Rank City Best category Score 1 New York Economic activity 151 2 London Economic activity 149 3 Paris Quality of life 149 4 Tokyo Economic activity 144 5 Los Angeles Knowledge and influence 122 6 Brussels Political power 121 7 Singapore Economic activity 119 8 Berlin Quality of life 113 9 Beijing Political power 113 10 Toronto Quality of life 112 11 Chicago Knowledge and influence 111 12 Washington D.C. Political power 111 13 Seoul Economic activity 103 14 Hong Kong Knowledge and influence 96 15 Frankfurt Quality of life 96 16 Sydney Knowledge and influence 92 17 San Francisco Quality of life 90 18 Bangkok Political power 83 19 Shanghai Economic activity 83 20 Zurich Quality of life 79 Cities ranked by category Rank Population of city (proper) Population of metropolitan area38 Foreign born population39 Expatriate cost of living (most expensive first)10 Metro systems by annual passenger ridership Metro systems by total route length Annual airport traffic by passenger40 Number of billionaires (U.S. dollars)41 Gross Metropolitan Product at total PPPs42 1 Mumbai Tokyo Toronto Tokyo Tokyo Shanghai London New York City Tokyo 2 Shanghai Seoul New York City Osaka Moscow London New York City London New York City 3 Karachi Mexico City Hong Kong Moscow Seoul New York City Tokyo Moscow Los Angeles 4 Delhi New York City Los Angeles Geneva New York City Berlin Atlanta Hong Kong Chicago 5 Istanbul Mumbai Miami Hong Kong Paris Seoul Chicago Los Angeles Paris 6 So Paulo Jakarta London Zurich Beijing Tokyo Paris Dallas London 7 Moscow So Paulo Chicago Copenhagen Mexico City Moscow Los Angeles Istanbul Osaka 8 Seoul Delhi Sydney New York City Hong Kong Madrid Dallas San Francisco Mexico City 9 Beijing Osaka San Francisco Beijing Shanghai Beijing Frankfurt Chicago Mumbai So Paulo Tokyo Philadelphia 10 Mexico City Shanghai Moscow Singapore London Paris Beijing n/a Washington D.C. See also Financial centre Metropolis Megalopolis (city type) Specialized City Primate city Ecumenopolis References Sassen Saskia - The global city: strategic site/new frontier Sassen Saskia - The Global City: New York London Tokyo. (1991) - Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-07063-6 http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/737 UK History a b c d e Doel M. & Hubbard P. (2002) "Taking World Cities Literally: Marketing the City in a Global Space of flows" City vol. 6 no. 3 pp. 351-368. Subscription required a b GaWC Research Bulletin 5 GaWC Loughborough University 28 July 1999 Urban CharacteristicsCity Level 1993PDF (61.6 KB) "World Resources 1998-99" WRI 1998. Global Urban Indicators Database 2 (1998 data) (data sets in .ZIP) UN-HABITAT World Indices Bloomberg J.V. Beaverstock World City Networks 'From Below' GaWC Loughborough University 29 September 2005 a b Mercer's 2008 Cost of living highlights Mercer 02 June 2009 The World's Billionaires Forbes 2008 Chapter 5: Globalization and cultural choicePDF (352 KB) "2004 Human Development Report" (page 99) UNDP 2004 Chapter 9: Urban DataPDF (196 KB) "World Resources 1998-99" WRI 1998 City Profiles UN Mobility 2001PDF (1.59 MB) WBCSD WORLD URBANIZATION PROSPECTS: THE 2003 REVISIONPDF (3.73 MB) UN 2004 World-wide quality of living survey Mercer 10 April 2006 The city development indexPDF "THE STATE OF THE WORLD'S CITIES REPORT 2001" UN-HABITAT 21 June 2006 P. De Groote Economic and Tourism Aspects of the Olympic Games GaWC Loughborough University 21 September 2005 1PDF (registration required) K. O'Connor International Students and Global Cities GaWC Loughborough University 17 February 2005 World Heritage List UNESCO Estimated Ridership of the Worlds Largest Public Transit Systems 1998 COMMUTER RAIL (SUBURBAN RAIL REGIONAL RAIL) IN THE UNITED STATES: INTERNATIONAL CONTEXTPDF (218 KB) October 2003 Traffic Intensity by International Urban Area: 1990 Largest seaports of the world Mapping the Global Network Economy on the Basis of Air Passenger Transport Flows GaWC Loughborough University 8 December 2004 The World's Best Skylines "The World According to GaWC 2008". Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Study Group and Network. Loughborough University. http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/world2008t.html. Retrieved 2009-05-07.  "The World According to GaWC 2008 - Graph". Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Study Group and Network. Loughborough University. http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/world2008c.html. Retrieved 2009-05-27.  "The 2008 Global Cities Index". Foreign Policy (November/December 2008). October 21 2008. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.phpstoryid4509. Retrieved 2008-10-31.  The Urban Elite: The A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index 2010 2010 Global Cities Index "Global Power City Index 2009". Tokyo Japan: Institute for Urban Strategies at The Mori Memorial Foundation. October 22 2009. http://www.mori-m-foundation.or.jp/english/research/project/6/pdf/GPCI2009English.pdf. Retrieved 2009-10-29.  The Wealth Report 2010 Knightfrank.com 25. March 2010 New York! The Big Apple s the most influential city PropertyNice 25. March 2010 "Revealed: Cities that rule the world". CNN. 2010-04-10. http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/04/10/cities.dominate.world/index.html.  R.L. Forstall R.P. Greene and J.B. Pick "Which are the largest Why published populations for major world urban areas vary so greatly" City Futures Conference (University of Illinois at Chicago July 2004) Table 5 (p.34) Global City Migration Map http://www.aci.aero/aci/aci/file/Press%20Releases/2007PRs/PR180707TOP10.pdf In Pictures: Top Billionaire Cities Forbes 3 June 2009 PriceWaterhouseCoopers "UK Economic Outlook March 2007" page 5. ""Table 1.2  Top 30 urban agglomeration GDP rankings in 2005 and illustrative projections to 2020 (using UN definitions and population estimates)"" (PDF). Archived from the original on 2007-06-10. http://web.archive.org/web/20070610175146/http://www.ukmediacentre.pwc.com/imagelibrary/downloadMedia.aspMediaDetailsID863. Retrieved 2007-03-09.  External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Global City Repository of Links Relating to Urban Places World Cities article by Jennifer Curtis of Charles Sturt University The World-Systems City System: A Research Agenda by Jeffrey Kentor and Michael Timberlake of the University of Utah and David Smith of University of California Irvine The State of the World's Cities 2001 UN Human Settlements Programme "U.S. Cities in the 'World City Network'" by Peter J. Taylor and Robert E. Lang February 2005 (Full Report in PDF)