As we struggle to find ways to survive the current crisis and look at the leaders of the world to provide guidance, the latest Hub Culture 2009 Zeitgeist Ranking will come in handy as a tour of the cities that are better positioned to sustain an acceptable quality of life while providing plenty of opportunities to rebuild for the future. A zeitgeist reflecting the drama of our times:
Washington,DC
its not really about the Obamas – its about the context of our changing expectations of government
Berlin
Berliners become an enigma – povo at home, increasingly affluent abroad
Beijing
Just ignore the noxious skyline as you watch the GDP growth rates, still hovering near 9%
Los Angeles
LA’s fashion scene has stagnated, and the city’s hold on entertainment is slipping to diffusion by web 2.0
Tokyo
the principles of kaizen (continuous improvement) are shaping a really cool new Japanese ecovibe
Sydney
The general attitude down under appears to be one of distant concern
Saö Paulo
Here, ‘crunch’ is in the quinoa, not in the financial vocabulary
Hong Kong
The city is rich enough to sit out the bust, and it can always rely on China’s neighboring Guangdong province to drive the local economy
New York
Hunger breeds innovation, because people actually have to think, plot and [...]
Continuing with the exploration of cities with a population actively engaged in global communications, here is a snapshot of the top 30 cities with most tweets (twitter messages) as calculated by TwitterLocal. The link presents the top 30 in the last 24 hours, here is a snapshot at the time of publishing:
167830
Tokyo – 13.5%
New York – 9.2%
San Francisco – 6.1%
Los Angeles – 5.9%
London – 4.9%
Washington – 4.1%
Chicago – 3.9%
Boston – 3.0%
Seattle – 3.0%
Sao Paulo – 2.7%
Other cities outside of North America included in the list: Osaka, Madrid, Sydney, Amsterdam, Paris, Melbourne, Berlin, Bangkok, Barcelona, Taipei, Santiago, Dublin and Caracas.
Further to my post on the 2008 Global Cities Index, here is another snippet from the report ranking the best cities to get some culture based on things like sporting events, concurrence of travellers, variety of their culinary offerings, art installations and performances.
London
Paris
New York
Toronto
Los Angeles
Moscow
Tokyo
Berlin
Mexico City
Seoul
and the rest of the list.
With the recent opening of the Art Gallery of Ontario, a controversial renovation of the Royal Ontario Museum and a brand new Centre for the Performing Arts, us Torontonians have forged our way into the top 10. But it makes you wonder how much this type of top 10 lists can fluctuate when you start adding other factors as part of the ranking such as:
average distance to nearby world heritage site,
number of cultural events programmed throughout the year,
affluence of visitors to major festivals,
foreign cultures with active representation in the city,
cumulative age of historic sites within city boundaries…
In January of 2007 I posted the globalization index, a partnership between Foreign Policy magazine and A.T. Kearney. At the time the report listed the most globalized countries, led by Singapore, Switzerland and the United States. A few weeks ago I decided to once again fine tune the editorial line of this blog by dedicating more time to cover urban issues and the role of cities in the shaping of our global culture. So finding the Foreign Policy’s 2008 Global Cities Index serves to reinforce the recent spirit of this blog.
The methodology to rank the cities includes 24 metrics in five dimensions:
The first is business activity: including the value of its capital markets, the number of Fortune Global 500 firms headquartered there, and the volume of the goods that pass through the city. The second dimension measures human capital, or how well the city acts as a magnet for diverse groups of people and talent. This includes the size of a city’s immigrant population, the number of international schools, and the percentage of residents with university degrees. The third dimension is information exchange—how well news and information is dispersed about and to the rest of [...]
Every year Stan Stalnaker and his team of global citizens gather their experiences around the world and summarize in this, their now famous Hub Culture’s Zeitgeist Ranking, the cities that for a variety of reasons seem to be at the center of the Universe. An elusive classification that doesn’t get impressed with economic power, flawless life-styles or centuries-old traditions, is mostly based on heuristics that related to the needs and desires of global citizens hoping from hub to hub networking their way into urban authorities. This is their veredict:
Los Angeles, United States
In some ways, the doom and gloom LA has experienced recently has presaged the general red alerts now being felt elsewhere – from environmental crisis to economic lapse, LA seems to have arrived in the shits just before everyone else.
Berlin, Germany
As the cutting edge vibe in London wanes, Berlin continues to draw the young and the restless, and its ties to a resurgent East (i.e. Moscow, Warsaw) are really showing dividends.
Mumbai, India
Even as Mumbai gridlock threatens to become a 24/7 state of affairs, India in general and Mumbai in particular continue their assault on the global consciousness. It’s hard to argue against Mumbai, especially with so many [...]
Next week the Mayors from 40 of the world’s largest cities will gather in New York to review progress, share best practices, identify collaboration opportunities and set action plans to fight climate change. The C40 Large Cities Climate Summit program will include topics such as Beating Congestion, Decentralized Energy, Efficient Water Supply, Climate Change in the context of Economic Development, Green Buildings, Waste Management & Low Carbon Economies.
In big city I had pointed out how the action of the largest cities is what really matters when dealing with global problems. 10% of the world’s population live in 100 of the largest cities alone. Through management of their infrastructure, landfills, treatment plans, legislation of local land use policies to drive development in the right direction, regulation of automobiles and their energy plants, the overall impact they can exercise is significant.
The delegates attending will represent (bold indicates among 10 largest cities in the world):
Melbourne, Sydney (Australia)
Dhaka (Bangladesh)
Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo (Brazil)
Toronto (Canada)
Beijing, Shanghai (China)
Bogota (Colombia)
Copenhagen (Denmark)
Cairo (Egypt)
Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)
Paris (France)
Berlin (Germany)
Delhi, Mumbai (India)
Jakarta (Indonesia)
Rome (Italy)
Tokyo (Japan)
Mexico City (Mexico)
Rotterdam (Netherlands)
Lagos (Nigeria)
Karachi (Pakistan)
Lima (Peru)
Warsaw (Poland)
Moscow (Russia)
Johannesburg (South Africa)
Seoul (South Korea)
Barcelona, Madrid (Spain)
Stockholm (Sweden)
Bangkok (Thailand)
Istanbul (Turkey)
London (United [...]
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