After spending the past decade overshadowed by London in the World’s Best Cities ranking, we realized we’d been following the wrong list all along. Oxford Economics finally sees New York City the way we do—ranking it as the best city in the world!
We’re only teasing, as both studies carry out their own credible research to discern their rankings—we just happen to agree with the one that puts us in first place.
Oxford Economics Global Cities Index utilizes 40 economists who are experts in spatial data, urban dynamics, and forecasting. With this expertise, they analyze indicators across 1,000 cites worldwide to measure their strengths and attractiveness. Categories such as economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance are explored to get a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges being faced by each city.
When evaluating all major global cities, New York City emerged as the world’s top city. The study noted NYC as a global hub for finance, tech, media and advertising—thus, its top ranking was in economics. “The city is the economic capital of the United States, and in many ways, the world.”
Since New York City ranked number one, Oxford Economics developed a scoring system for all cities and each individual category, using NYC’s overall score of 100 as the benchmark. NYC also scored 100 in economics, 86.4 in human capital, 83.8 in quality of life, 75.9 in environment and 81.1 in governance.
London landed right behind NYC as the second best city in the world, with an overall score of 98.5. Paris, San Jose, Seattle, Melbourne, Sydney, Boston, Tokyo, and San Fransisco rounds out the top 10. Although Tokyo placed ninth, the study deemed New York, London and Tokyo as true “global cities” driving the world’s economy.
For those most concerned with quality of life, they may want to look into moving to Canberra, Australia, as this city scored a 100 in that category—16.2 points greater than NYC’s quality of life score.
You can explore the full ranking on the Oxford Economics website or download the full report.