Today more than ever, cities require strategic planning. Only then can they consider pathways to innovation and prioritize what is most important for their future. For the fourth consecutive year, we are pleased to present a new edition of our IESE Cities in Motion Index (CIMI). Since its inception, the CIMI has empirically validated our conceptual model, which assesses the cities in relation to 10 key dimensions: economy, human capital, technology, the environment, international outreach, social cohesion, mobility and transportation, governance, urban planning, and public management.
Encouraged by the positive reception our index of cities has had in various forums linked to city management, we have decided to publish the CIMI for another year. As in previous editions, we have tried to provide an index that is objective, comprehensive, wide-ranging and guided by the criteria of conceptual relevance and statistical rigor. The 2017 edition of the CIMI includes 180 cities – 73 of them capitals – representing 80 countries. The breadth of the project establishes the CIMI as one of the city indexes with the most widespread geographical coverage available today.
General Ranking
The 2017 index reveals that there was good news for some of the world’s urban hubs: New York City (1), London (2) and Paris (3) rise victorious in the test of being cities ready to embrace the future. New York City (United States) is first in the overall ranking, driven by its performance in the dimensions of the economy (first place), technology (second place), human capital and public management (fourth place), international outreach and urban planning (fifth place), and governance (sixth place). However, it continues to be in very low positions in the dimensions of social cohesion (position 153) and environment (position 82). Indeed, if we look into the specifics of each dimension we can find other interesting stories.
Economy
The city that heads the ranking in this dimension is New York City (United States). This city achieves relatively high levels in all indicators but it stands out especially for its high GDP and number of headquarters of publicly traded companies. It is important to mention that the top 10 for this dimension has eight U.S. cities.
Human Capital
The city that ranks first in this dimension is London (United Kingdom). This city stands out for being the one that has the most top-level business schools, as well as for being the one with the highest number of universities. Likewise, a high proportion of its population has secondary and higher education. Although the number one city is London, the top 10 ranking for this dimension has seven American cities.
Social Cohesion
Helsinki (Finland) is the city with the highest rating in this dimension. It is a city with a low unemployment rate, an equitable distribution of income and the highest percentage of women in government positions (more than 70%). It is worth noting that the top 10 cities in this ranking are European.
Environment
In this dimension, the cities that are best positioned are Zurich (Switzerland) and Tallinn (Estonia). These cities are in the top of the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) and have low levels of pollution and CO2 emissions. Eight of the cities in the top 10 for this dimension are European.
Public Management
In this case, Geneva placed first, with good values in almost all the indicators, and it stands out especially for its low sales taxes and its reserves per capita. The top 10 for this dimension is made up of five U.S. cities and four Middle Eastern cities.
Governance
In this dimension, Ottawa (Canada) ranks first, standing out in the strength of legal rights index and the corruption perceptions index. Among the top 10 cities in this dimension’s ranking, there are four Canadian cities.
Urban Planning
In this dimension, Amsterdam (Netherlands) ranks first and is among the highest-ranking in almost all the indicators. It stands out because almost 100% of the population has access to adequate sanitation facilities and because of its low number of people per household. It is important to mention that eight European cities are in the top 10 for this dimension.
International Outreach
Paris (France) is the top-ranking city for this dimension and London (United Kingdom) is in second place. This is because Paris is the city with the second-highest number of international tourists and ranks first in the ranking of cities by the number of photos taken in the city and uploaded to Panoramio. It is also the city where the most international conferences and meetings are organized. London, in turn, is the city that attracts a higher number of airline passengers, which is consistent with the fact that it is one of the cities with the largest number of air routes. Of the top 10 cities for this dimension, there are six European and two Asian cities.
Technology
Taipei (Taiwan) is the city at the pinnacle of this ranking. This city achieves good levels in all the indicators and stands out especially for the percentage of broadband users in the city, the number of Facebook users per capita, and the number of mobile phones per capita. Of the cities that occupy the top 10 positions, there are six Asian cities and three U.S. cities.
Mobility and Transportation
The city of London (United Kingdom) comes first in the ranking and stands out in almost all the dimensions. Of the top 10 cities in the ranking for this dimension, there are eight European cities.
So what can be learned from the study? First, there is no single model for success so the city strategy has to be adapted to each situation. Secondly, the perfect city does not exist. Even those that are placed in the top ranks have weaknesses. The overarching goal should be to develop urban spaces where people can live and carry out their activities with the greatest opportunity and probabilities of success, within a liveable, creative and socially responsible environment. Cities should work towards creating more attractive places and generating healthier, happier and more prosperous lives for all citizens.
You can download the full report here: IESE Cities in Motion Index 2017.
Pretty nice article, thanks! Building a city strategic plan sometimes seems daunting at first. But it needn’t be. It’s simply a process you can use to help balance the demands of all the constituencies in the community with the realities of a constrained amount of time and money. Yes, there are many things we want to do to grow and thrive as a community, but what do we need to do and when? That is the essence of strategic planning.
No surprise New York City is first in the overall ranking. That city impress me every time I have to fly there for my job.
Instead, I have been very surprised to see Helsinki as the city with the highest social cohesion rating. I worked 2 years there in Finland and it is in my opinion their life-style is very closed and sad. There is not such a cohesion between people. Guys get married very young, do children and frequent their school friends for the rest of their life. It is very difficult to make friends with them. Of course this is only my opinion.
This study is very interesting, thank you for sharing !
Great read.Its nice to know that even the great cities like london and paris have some weakness
Yes, I agree with you that there are lots of weaknesses in top ranked cities, but I think we are ranking here on the basis of available statistics.
Thanks for sharing these statistics and I agree with you that all cities have their weaknesses, but I guess the ranking is based on the statistics.
Very good list, some of these cities was very logical to find them in the post they are in but others I was not expecting. Thanks for sharing.
Nice and interesting study 🙂
very very informative article about cities challenges and mangagement 🙂
Thank you for the very interesting and good information. I got some more information about General Ranking, technology, Mobility and Transportation.
In my Opion, world’s urban hubs like New York City remain on top them all
Quiet a satisfying ranking this. Happy to know that Switzerland made number 1 position in environment and public management.
Good post of cities challenges.
I love New York City. Glad to see, New York on First Position in Economy Section.
Great! Now I really want to go back to NYC. Thanks for the post!!
New York that’s a great city! I would like to visit it some day and walk through Central Park. It’s a childhood dream
wow….this is so amazing. New York will always remain ontop.
Muchas gracias por tan interesante información, es muy instructivo el artículo.
oh.. Helsinki is so beautifull
I am wondering if you have a document that articulates clearly the actual indicators and their weighting in each of the categories.
Thanks
Daniel,
In our IESE Cities in Motion webpage, you can find all our publications: https://www.iese.edu/en/faculty-research/research-centers/cgs/cities-motion-strategies/publications/. There you will find the five editions of the IESE Cities in Motion index and a document on Methodology and Modelling.
Thank you.
oh.. Helsinki is so beautifull
All cities should strive more to improve the lives of citizens, congratulations New York! Thanks for such a good article
I didn’t see education in any of the strategic planning. I think it is crucial.
Have you guys seen the 2014 edition of this? The pdf is simply amazing! Excellent arrangement and visualization. Wp to the data analysts.
Especially striking to see small cities as Zurich and Tallinn leading the ranking in environment. Great example for others.
This is a great success, and it shows that much effort behind this is enough.
I hope that these successes will be repeated continuously
wow….this is so amazing. New York will always remain ontop
That is a huge lead and success, new york has always been the best city and i am glad to see on the first position
This is a great article!
Thanks for sharing it with us. I wanna move to New York now 😉
Interesting to see that Tokyo is the only city in the top ten economics and the top ten environment, that’s the way to go!
I never thought that these powerful Cities too can have some weakness like this.
thanks for sharing these important information
How interesting to see that Tokyo is the only city in the top ten economics and the top ten environment. Japanese people are always so dedicated to enhance his country in many diferent ways. Hopefully many countries may copy some policies.
wow….this is so amazing. New York will always remain ontop
Interesting thoughts on the AI revolution of today.
You make some very important points in this post that are very impressive GoSEO.
wow….this is so amazing. New York will always remain ontop. i see you in google.
wow….this is so amazing. New York will always remain ontop. i see you in google.keep it up
wow….this is so amazing. New York will always remain ontop. i see you in google.keep it up great.
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Cool! Thanks to the author for informing me. It seems to me at the moment this is one of the most objective indexes for evaluating cities in the world. As far as I know, The IESE Cities Traffic Index is a study published annually by the Business School of the University of Navarra (IESE) that aims to assess the development of the world’s cities. It assesses several socio-economic dimensions of development, including human capital, social cohesion (including employment, female labor force participation, etc.), Governance, sustainable development, mobility and transport, urban planning, international action and technology. I gathered this information from informative posts on Instagram in which the authors talk about urban governance around the world. There you can find a couple of hundred similar posts and I noticed that most often they are published by accounts with at least 16 thousand subscribers! I am sure this is because their owners repeatedly use the services of https://soclikes.com/ in order to increase their number.
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