City rankings worldwide update & 2024 changes
News on the exciting trends for the 2024 city rankings... + a recap of the 2022-2023 full list of global & city rankings from the Innovation Cities™ Index; including the Excel download file below.
Just to announce exciting news… the 2023-2024 city rankings are partly under way for the Innovation Cities™ Index.
The Index is the world's largest and longest running city ranking for innovation. It covers 500 cities across the globe. It was established in 2007. And being based on 162 indicators it is also very broad-based, unlike other rankings.
Timing for release will be some time in mid-2024.
Sorry … we don’t know much more yet. Please do be patient.
And Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to those celebrating at current!
New in 2024
Trends the city rankings will be looking at include:
Return to the office (big implications for cities. commuting and urban real estate)
Hybrid working from home (3/2 split becoming common) and…
Hybrid vehicles (the real winner in the current war on CO2)
New tech like AI generative language (i.e. Chat-GPT)
Robotics + AI (we have been tracking fertile grounds for robots which are some reasons why the ecosystems of Boston and Tokyo always rank well)
Inter-generational dynamics - more significant than the 1970s
Multi-theatre instability (impacting Mid-East and Russia/Caucasus/Europe, and always affecting the U.S. who is always involved.)
And many more interesting city trends.
If you compare top cities of our previous indexes to which cities are dominating A.I. at current, you will find a correlation. So, yes our method poredicted which cities are now top in the hottest thing - A.I..
This is because - the innovation eco-systems we measure of cities support A.I. development.
Also, we have had a number of structural changes, and the Index will be compiled and shared in new ways going forward. All will be shared at the appropriate time.
Update on site issue remedies
For some of you, there have been some site and download issues.
We had thought the issues repaired after migrating the servers and changing back ends, but some locations still having issues. Issues may have varied based on location and other technical factors. So you may, or may not, have had an issue.
Apologies if you personally had some site issues recently. The issues now seem to be fixed as of ~2 weeks ago for all locations.
The easiest way to update everyone is to post to this list, as a large number of you have registered for this newsletter and updates.
Summary of the 2023 City Results
As you are aware, every year (usually) the Index measures the cities innovation eco-systems - which also ties to quality of life and creativity for many people.
While New York or London may not be the friendliest or cosiest cities, they still attract large numbers of migrants and creatives - attracted by their innovation ecosystems.
An innovation ecosystem inspires ideas, make it possible to implement and scale them through a well balanced set of indicators.
This ‘idea development’ is no doubt harder in Cedar Rapids than New York. And exponentially harder again in Dar es Salaam.
Fundamentally, that’s the insight. It is possible to assess innovation conditions, improve them, and ultimately increase innovation instances as a result.
And we have researched, tested and modelled a way to differentiate locations that is agnostic of your individual likes and dislikes. That focuses on innovation-enabling, rather than judging.
More Innovation Equals More Growth
We also managed to correlate in 2023 high performance in our Index to higher GDP per capita. Based on 10 years of longitudinal data.
Innovate more, grow GDP.
So it’s a strong correlation.
Schumpeter would love it.
In general, if you do what we say to build an innovation eco-system, your GDP should rise in most cases. And your unemployment fall.
Pretty exciting stuff.
When this model was developed over 10 years ago in it’s modern form, there was only limited data to validate that insight.
Now we can finally pull sufficient longitudinal city-level GDP per capita (among other data) at high degress of confidence in all regions - to validate against our framework.
And yes, generally speaking, rank higher for innovation have higher GDP.
And no, that’s not STEM driving it.
Innovation is not STEM. (although STEM matters.)
Ask us for a virtual workshop to learn more.
The current city rankings
Below city rankings are all for 2022-2023 period, so the most current period. It’s useful to recap all these, and explain the various groupings.
Some data within each will be older, but overall the impact will be more recent due to our special indicator processes.
Our rankings have been long around - they are not in any way linked to the U.N or World Economic Forum despite them quoting us many times - and thus remain relatively independent of politics and national or global biases.
For example, we measure the growth in bicycle usage as a positive thing, but we also measure walking and automobiles (one indicator). We also measure more than ten public transport indicators. So obviously we believe mass transit is tied to innovation.
Yet we are not here to preach or lecture. We care what works.
We are not evangelising on EVs - yet we still have comprehensive measures of EV infrastructure we have compiled for the 500 cities.
We are even independent of national legislative influence. The only nation to have some influence on us is Australia (where we started), and as you can see Australian cities do not win the Index top positions generally.
So, if anything we may be too harsh in border-line scores on Australian cities to avoid bias (I believe we are fair, but nevertheless).
Final rankings have evolved into an algorithm with settings set for all 500 cities at once. Which helps balance, as change a setting for all 500 cities at once.
It really is a great model.
Knowledge partners?
Of course, if we could find the right knowledge partner, that fitted our needs with a strong network, such as global firm, we would be willing to transfer this specialist knowledge to them at a price, and to stimulate further growth in the framework.
Global city rankings at now
The following lists form are current published results. As above these are some time in 2024 to be updated for all cities.
Global 500
The premier ranking, published since 2007 - see all years.
The Excel download follows below. this download is also used to construct the sub rankings that follow:
Alternate global city rankings
If you want the most powerful nations and their cities you could choose the G8 or G20 city ranking. These groupings track cities of major powers deciding national policy.
Global city rankings by size
As covered in last weeks post, if you are population-focused:
Global Small 200* - covers cities under 1 million urban population. (yes, their metro population may be larger). Yes, Amsterdam and Tel Aviv do well.
Global Medium 200* - covers cities 1 million to 4.4. million urban population. These are cities yet to become mega-cities like Paris, London, Tokyo, Beijing, NYC, etc. These are cities in the mid-size phase.
Region City Rankings
Unlike other city rankings we also track performance within regions / national groupings. Many of these correspond to large nations, or transnational blocs like the E.U.. This means when a region has a bad year, you can still track relative results within that region (who is best in a bad year, relatively).
United States of America most innovative cities
Federal U.S. policy impacts the United States, but so do State - as the U.S. is actually a legal amalgam of fifty states.
U.S. states act like countries in economic and social policies - just not national defense. California and Texas are on every measure bigger than many countries.
Plus each city has a city hall - a local government whose mission varies widely by location. Beyond parking tickets and potholes, local governments of larger cities like NYC and Chicago, and even smaller councils, set economic and social policy also.
The final ranking for the U.S.A. includes all these - and many more considerations. It is designed to be well balanced, and ignore the anti-American hysteria in much of the highly dubious media stories these days.
What about smaller U.S. cities?
Also for size comparatives there are the USA Small-Scale Cities* and USA Mid-Size Cities*. These are included in the main U.S. ranking as well.
Alternate North America city ranking
The NAFTA rankings are a broader alternative. This includes Mexico and Canada (also subject to its own ranking).
We once published an AMERICAS region ranking, group North and South America. This can still be generated by grouping on the region field in the excel download.
Europe’s most innovative & advanced cities
In the spirit of European innovation, we have multiple rankings for ‘Europe’. given that the continent has multiple definitions. (Too many wars have been fought over the map of Europe, so it’s better that at least it is discussed these days.)
Europe - Broad Definition
European regional city ranking, featuring all of what is sometimes termed ‘Europe’ with 168 cities. This has been broadly consistent since 2007, so can be compared easily also, and is thus great for models needing consistency.
You could also exclude countries that you don’t want in the model easily enough.
Alternate European city rankings
Of course, this must start with the European Union. Which is narrower than above.
And thus include the EU-27 and EU+EEA+Sw based on the standard European Union, and extended economic area, respectively.
For the euro-skeptics, the U.K. has it’s own ranking now since Brexit. So here is the U.K. city ranking. You could add that back onto the E.U. for continuity with old models.
Of course, no one can ever agree what is Europe and what is not. Especially not the global institutions tasked with the endeavour. Israel is classified in Europe, along with Turkey in some definitions - but not in others. (We don’t make the rules, but you can define your own).
So use the Excel to make your own European definition and track that year on year going forward.
Asia’s most developed cities for innovation
The Asia Region covers the broadest definition of Asia, which is geographically regional rather than purely cultural.
This perhaps is the most interesting definition of ‘Asia’.
Alternate national & bloc Asian city rankings
One such would be ASEAN (few cities) based on the trade bloc. Another would be China Region, India or Japan rankings.
For those chasing Oceania - dominates by Australia and New Zealand economically, then the ANZ rankings are best. Note that many cities from islands north of Australia would be included purely based on geography if there was a budget to do so.
Obviously ANZ can be filtered on the two countries to generate informative national rankings.
For those seeking to define their own boundaries, you could once again always create your own Asia grouping with the Excel file and publish that.
Mid-East & Africa
There are separate rankings of the Mid-East and Africa. Some folks may like to create a MENA ranking, but while we do respond to requests, we don’t create this ranking.
Alternative Gulf cities ranking
For those chasing a pure Gulf ranking, we suggest the alternative of the GCC. Which is a pure ‘gulf’ ranking.
Latin America
Latin America includes Mexico (also grouped in NAFTA ranking) and various islands. This makes logical sense, regionally.
The term ‘South America’ properly excludes Mexico which is part of North America. For these reasons we publish Mexico correctly as part of Latin America and NAFTA.
The former Americas index included both North and South America.
Russia, Ukraine and Caucasus
Eurasia (broadly also Caucasus) and Russia form the final bloc and national rankings.
Custom other city rankings
National rankings are an option. Once again, you can generate your own blocs and national groupings - although we have covered more.
The global and regional groupings will also appear on same basis in 2024.
If any of you would like us to help with city data, analysis on your city, workshops, or answer research questions, please email comms@2thinknow.com
If you have a proposal to collaborate on fair terms, please reach out.
Until then, Merry Christmas (for those who celebrate December 25th), and see you in the New (Western) Year.
Keep Innovating!
~ CH
PS. Thanks to Photo by Sean Benesh on Unsplash