As a whole cities are improving so they all need to run to keep up.Įven at the pinnacle, New York only offers about 60% of a perfect city, the creation of which would require the cherry picking of best bits from 16 metropolitan areas, he said.Įurope and the Asia-Pacific each had seven cities in the top 20, ahead of six in the Americas. The next 20 have been followed by 28 different locations and 33 cities have cycled through 41 to 60.īelow the top 10 you can see serious competition, said Mendoza Pena. Since the debut of the index in 2008, just 23 cities have occupied the top 20 positions. Advances by Shanghai and Guangzhou underscored China’s rise.īeijing’s move into the tier is unusual, says A.T. Brussels and Seoul dropped into the second 10.

The top 10 was rounded out by Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Chicago, Singapore and Washington.

The firm’s index, which will be released on Tuesday, was based on 26 metrics of how well municipalities spawn, attract and retain talent. We see Beijing continuing its upward trend.

What we’ve seen over time is strong business activity and heavyweight political influence are a combination of attributes which really propel cities and Beijing is a perfect example of this, said Andreas Mendoza Pena, a principal at A.T.

At kearney global cities index