Oxford Economics Global Cities Ranking: NYC Tops, California Dominates

I love a good list. And this one’s pretty cool.

Oxford Economics recently released a list of the top cities in the world. The list was based on five categories; Economics, Human Capital, Quality of Life, Environment, and Governance, which are aggregated to create a overall score for each city. Each category was comprised of multiple indicators (four to six, depending on the category), which aim to address some of the most important considerations within their respective categories.

“As a result, the Global Cities Index provides a more complete comparison of cities, by ranking them not just on their economic performance, but considering other important factors that influence their relative strengths,” Oxford Economics said. “With a total of 1,000 cities and 27 indicators included, our truly global and multidimensional coverage allows us to provide a remarkable breadth and depth to the Global Cities Index.”

Top Ten and scores out of 100:

1. New York City, 100
2. London, 99.4
3. San Jose, 98.5
4. Tokyo, 97.8
5. Paris, 96.3
6. Seattle, 95.8
7. Los Angeles, 95.4
8. San Francisco 94.7
9. Melbourne, 94.6
10. Zurich, 94.2

A cable car in San Francisco. Suzanne-Emily-O’Connor-Unsplash Photo

I didn’t see scores for the rest of the cities, but here are the remaining places that made the top 40.

11. Boston
12. Dublin
13. Washington D.C.
14. Stockholm
15. Copenhagen
16. Sydney
17. Toronto
18. Dallas
19. Oslo
20. Vancouver
21. Geneva
22. Luxembourg
23. Perth
24. Denver
25. Houston
26. Atlanta
27. Brisbane
28. Amsterdam
29. Chicago
30. Tel Aviv
31. Montreal
32. Munich
33. Philadelphia
34. Minneapolis
35. San Diego
36. Miami
37. Basel, Switzerland
38. Helsinki
39. Austin
40. Bern, Switzerland
41. Seoul
42. Singapore
43. Berlin
44. Canberra
45. Brussels
46. Phoenix
47. Madrid
48. Gothenburg, Sweden
49. Vienna
50. Calgary

Note that Toronto came out highest of any Canadian city, finishing 17^th overall. Vancouver was close behind at 20^th. Montreal and Calgary also made the top 50.

Australia had five cities in the top 50: Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Canberra. That’s impressive. I”m a big fan of Perth, so it’s great to see the city make the top 25.

Perth, Western Australia. JIM BYERS PHOTO

But it was my home state of California that really cleaned up, with San Jose finishing third in the world, and both L.A. and San Francisco in the top eight. No place on earth came close to that kind of domination. I mean, not by a million miles.

Now, in fairness, this is a bit of economic exercise. It’s not talking about best beaches, or top tacos, or finest hotels. But it’s a fair test from a solid group, and it definitely illustrates a city’s financial clout.

And, quite frankly, as much as I love both SF and LA, it’s nice to see usually unheralded San Jose make the podium, no doubt aided by being on the edge of Silicon Valley.

For those of you keeping score at home, I also note that Canada placed a number of other cities in the top 100. Ottawa-Gatineau was 62^nd, Quebec City 67^th, Halifax 88^th (love that city) and Edmonton 89^th. Winnipeg finished in the 111^th spot.

Other interesting rankings to me: Las Vegas was 97^th and Rome, one of the great cities of the world, came in at a lowly 134^th.

The lowest-ranked city in the world, coming in at the 1000th spot, was Sultanpur, India.