Capital of the World

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
LA is a dump.

That's the only reason it wouldn't make a good capital of the world.

It's downtown is almost as bad as Vancouver

It's not that its downtown is that bad as such. The problem is with its surroundings. But there are plenty of other great sites in LA other than the downtown. But then again the problem is that many of these nice places belong to independent municipal entities. I think if downtown LA could be moved somewhere on Wilshire Blvd near UCLA it would make for an absolutely great city.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by Adalbertus


Colon, what you are citing looks like a compilation made by bankers only. Frankfurt has most banks and the biggest airport in Germany only. It is not the most important in terms of Industry, or culture (in both Munich is far superior). Politically its only importance is through banks which is definitely as democratic as any other dictatorship.

You didn't check that site very throughly, did you? The list was made by study network with members at Loughbourog University, Virginia Tech and the University of Ghent.

They measure 4 globalized service sectors to identify world cities, those being accountancy, banking, legal services and advertising. While this may seem like a narrow yardstick, it is anything but. A city with a lot of industry will automatically also have a large presence of bankers and accountants catering to them. Political capitals attracts lawyers like flies to a honeypot. And culturally rich cities tend to draw creative sectors such as advertising. My city manages to squeeze in a point because the port and diamond trade creates a fairly large presence of accountancy firms.

Overall, their list seems to work: New York, Tokyo, London and Paris end up on top and those cities indeed are usually seen as the 4 most important cities of the world. No city looks entirely out of its place in their ranking.

[joncha]

Originally posted by Colon™

No city looks entirely out of its place in their ranking.

lol Minneapolis LOL

[Japher]

I voted Rome

Second place is Ur

[Adalbertus]

Originally posted by Colon™


They measure 4 globalized service sectors to identify world cities, those being accountancy, banking, legal services and advertising. While this may seem like a narrow yardstick, it is anything but.
...
Overall, their list seems to work: New York, Tokyo, London and Paris end up on top and those cities indeed are usually seen as the 4 most important cities of the world. No city looks entirely out of its place in their ranking.

This is a too narrow yardstick. And it is centred on banks.

That the "Top 4" come out as such is no wonder, because they are the undisputed centre of important countries. In more multicentral countries, as Germany, Switzerland or Italy, it is the banker's city (and for the US, Chicago is the second most important banker's city.)

Frankfurt definitely is out of its place. By far. Luxemburg and Vienna on the same rank is only possible with an overemphasis on banks.

Industry will not attract bankers, because bankers can be anywhere. Bankers attract legal services much more than industry does. Advertising, again, can be anywhere today.

[Colon™]

No, it is not centered on banks... In each of the 4 categories a maximum of 3 points are distributed. If Frankfurt ends up as an alpha city in their rankings it's because there's also a large presence of advertising, accountancy and legal services.

Yes, Germany is far more decentralised than France or the UK. How does this mean Paris is not a centre of greater global significance than Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin or Hamburg?

Face-to-face contact remains very important in services. A manufacturing firm isn't going to buy financial services from a company that does not have a nearby physical presence.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by joncha
lol Minneapolis LOL

QFT.

[Wittlich]

Well, it looks like New York is the overall winner of this poll.

[Adalbertus]

Originally posted by Colon™
No, it is not centered on banks... In each of the 4 categories a maximum of 3 points are distributed. If Frankfurt ends up as an alpha city in their rankings it's because there's also a large presence of advertising, accountancy and legal services.

Two of which are likely to follow banks to a greater extent than industry.

Yes, Germany is far more decentralised than France or the UK. How does this mean Paris is not a centre of greater global significance than Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin or Hamburg?

You didn't get my point. The top four have top ranks also in industry, culture and education, and probably most aspects other than environmental qualities and rural peacefulness. Therefore it doesn't matter which set of criteria you choose, and therefore it doesn't help to say whether the investigation really helps to identify world cities.

Face-to-face contact remains very important in services. A manufacturing firm isn't going to buy financial services from a company that does not have a nearby physical presence.

This doesn't need a "major presence" but someone in some office.

[Colon™]

If Washington and Brussels are listed as prime legal services centers then the reason is the host of institutions that are situated in those cities, not so much the finance industry.

Industry, culture and education do not exist in a vacuum vis-a-vis services. Barcelona is a magnet for the creative industry because of its cultural appeal for instance. You know what yuppies are like.
A large presence in one field is usually accompagnied by a large presence in another field. And what typifies those 4 service industries is exactly that they're auxiliary and even essential to other activities. A university also has to promote itself, has to get its bills checked, has to deal with legal problems or needs a banking account. And demand from a lot of manufacturing firms needs a lot of someones in a lot of offices.

Ok, maybe their ranking pushes Venice, Jerusalem or Oxford to the wayside but I don't anyone would seriously consider them to be world cities.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Colon™
No, it is not centered on banks... In each of the 4 categories a maximum of 3 points are distributed. If Frankfurt ends up as an alpha city in their rankings it's because there's also a large presence of advertising, accountancy and legal services.

Which world city would need cultural services...

[Odin]

Originally posted by joncha


lol Minneapolis LOL

Teh GLORIOUS City of Lakes:

[Adalbertus]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Colon™
A large presence in one field is usually accompagnied by a large presence in another field.[\quote]

True for Paris and London. Wrong for New York, Frankfurt, Zurich, Milan etc. The latter cites get their rank from providing services to industry to some extent elsewhere. Frankfurt is an extreme case, I guess Zurich is not so much better.

[Colon™]

Do you think New York would still be a prime city in each of those 4 services sectors if it didn't have NYSE and NASDAQ, if it didn't house the Federal Reserve Bank Board of Governors, if it didn't host a huge concentration of corporate HQ's, if it wasn't home to the UN and if it didn't generally contain millions of people? I also don't think you can see Frankfurt's strength in this study as independent from the fact it houses the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the European Central Bank and one of Europe's biggest airports.

I do admit Zurich may be overrated by their methods. I also don't think the study is perfect, but overall I find it does an extremely good job at indirectly measuring cities' global significance by looking at the presence of those auxiliary service sectors.

[Kuciwalker]

if it wasn't home to the UN

Yes.