# how credible is GaWC inventory of world cities?



## VansTripp (Sep 29, 2004)

pottebaum said:


> They're outdated--the list is based on a research bulletin created 6 years ago, and much of the data is well over 10 years old. It's only financial influence, though--it's hard to tell. I've read the report over a little bit, and they don't do that great of a job incorporating the _national_ influence. For example, if Tokyo had more Global 2000 companies than New York, it could still be considered below NY in corporate influence because the United States has 2.5X more Global 2000 companies than Japan.
> 
> If this were done today, do you think Hong Kong would replace Paris?


No, I doubt that HK will replaces Paris.


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## dom (Sep 11, 2002)

Don't get to het up about this survey. Its by no means perfect, its preliminary and the authors agree on this. But it is biggest and most comprehensive of its kind (well, it was when I did a couple of courses on Global Cities in 2003). Despite Loughborough University not being of international renown, it is one of the leading centers for research on 'world cities' and it has a highly reputable Geography department. 

I mean, it is ODD that Seattle doesn't score more highly. And yes, the data is a bit old. The sad thing is that since Boeing moved their corporate HQ to Chicago Seattle might drop even further... even though Seattle probably had the best 1990s 'globally' over any other city for its size (with Starbucks and Microsoft arguably being the 2 standard bearers/vanguard for globalisation in the 1990s!)

Also the GaWc survey doesn't take into consideration publicly owned companies. 

Giant companies therefore such as (off the top of my head!) aren't included..

- Bechtel 
- All the massive private hedge funds/private equity groups (Blackstone Group, KKR, Carlyle Group etc)
- Virgin Group
- Swire Group (Owns Cathay Pacific and loads of land in Hong Kong)
- Volkswagen (a massive company!)
- EDF and GDF (state owned French power companies which are complete behemoths!)
- The huge 'mittlestand' (medium sized companies in Germany which are the bedrock of its economy - e.g. Bosch and Miele)

These all aren't included. I'm sure the survey will improve with time and will include other indices.

Advanced producer services by the way are those which constitute the 'Quaternary Sector'... i.e. which serve the service economy aka the 'Tertiary Sector.'

So merchant banking and associated innovations/'inventions' (futures, options, options on options, interest rate swaps, fx swaps, bond trading, hedge funds), consultancies, insurance, reinsurance, accountancy firms, ad agencies and so on. London and New York are the major innovators for a lot of these. Chicago however, in finance is a major rival to New York in the States. I've got absolutely no doubt that NYC would piss all over London in most stuff if the pension funds in Boston moved there, CBOT and CMEX moved to NYC and all the insurance stuff from Hartford moved to Manhattan. But they haven't. London also has benefited from the EU membership and the continuing concentration of European financial services in the city.

This survey has all to do with international links you see... and London's proximity to the rest of Europe... and with 24 other countries in the EU as member states aids this 'interconnectivity rating' rather well. 

A good barometer of how global and interconnected London, and especially the City is the fact that more international telephone calls are made out of the City of London and Canary Wharf per person than anywhere else in the world. I can get the sources if you want me to but they are in the world city series of books... one of which is called 'London' by Micheal Porter.

The other books such as 'Tokyo' and 'Los Angeles' are must reads for anyone with any interest in this subject. I don't know if the one on New York City has been released yet but i'm sure it'd be a cracking read!

Its also a good idea to read some stuff by Saskia Sassen, Castells and many other sociologists/geographers if you want to know what a 'Global/World City' means, how the idea behind the terminology developed (advanced producer services and how global cities are the command centers of the world economy). Also you'll find out what the good/bad effects of advanced producer services are. Its fascinating stuff!

Happy reading!


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## XiaoBai (Dec 10, 2002)

I'd put Vancouver in Seattle in the 3 or 4 point category, in they are both pretty internationally important...look at all of the major companies in Seattle: microsoft, Amazon.com, starbucks, boeing (although the hq recently moved, the plants have remained--so it is still the site where the majority of boeing's planes are manufactured), and few others that I'm probably forgetting to mention.
I also would have thought Cairo would be higher...


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## nick_taylor (Mar 7, 2003)

Global and world cities is actually something I'm doing for my dissertation and I'm actually reading in great detail at the moment Saskia's The Global City: New York, London + Tokyo . An interesting read, alas I have not read any Michael Porter as of yet.


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## Monkey (Oct 1, 2002)

dom said:


> It shows what we already know - London and New York are the most international large cities, with the lions share of advanced producer services. And that Paris and Tokyo are the next 2 on the list. *Why the arguments?*


People are just jealous. I can't believe there are people on this forum who would actually rank the likes of Beijing ahead of London.


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## Rockefeller (Jan 1, 2005)

Phriggin' Ogre said:


> This would've been SOMEWHAT credible if it were updated. As we've clearly seen... a city can change drastically in a few short years.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Someone must be updating the list. Toronto but a few months ago was ranked as Beta, but now its listed as Alpha.


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## 909 (Oct 22, 2003)

wjfox2002 said:


> People are just jealous. I can't believe there are people on this forum who would actually rank the likes of Beijing ahead of London.


I have the feeling that most replies and suggestions here are based on a personal view instead of true knowlegde of this subject. That's something you can see in many subjects on this forum, discussions based on opinions and not on facts.


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

dom said:


> Errmm I studied world cities at university. The Gawc survey does have a rank. London comes top with 1.00. New York is a very very close 2nd at 0.98. The rest of the cities are quite a long way behind bar Tokers and Paris.
> 
> If you haven't studied global cities or read say, Saskia Sassen's books you won't really have an idea of what the geographical/sociological definition of a 'world' or 'global city' is. This survey is the best us Geographers have at the moment. It shows what we already know - London and New York are the most international large cities with the lions share of advanced producer services. And that Paris and Tokyo are the next 2 on the list. Why the arguments?


kay:


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

pottebaum said:


> If this were done today, do you think Hong Kong would replace Paris?


Definately not...


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## Dampyre (Sep 19, 2002)

Rockefeller said:


> Someone must be updating the list. Toronto but a few months ago was ranked as Beta, but now its listed as Alpha.



It's a typo.


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## Rockefeller (Jan 1, 2005)

Edit


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## Rockefeller (Jan 1, 2005)

Dampyre said:


> It's a typo.


A definate possibility according to Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cities

Toronto is an Alpha city - this could be a typo but that would be a big mistake. 

The GaWC website

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/citylist.html

still has Toronto listed as Beta. So either Wikipedia is wrong or GaWC doesn't update their website quickly. Either way I would digress that until GaWC changes it, Toronto should still be listed as Beta as their can be no more credible source.


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## pottebaum (Sep 11, 2004)

dom said:


> Also the GaWc survey doesn't take into consideration publicly owned companies.


Why don't they?


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## samsonyuen (Sep 23, 2003)

Where was Toronto ever an Alpha city?


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## TalB (Jun 8, 2005)

I didn't really need to GaWC to tell me that Dubai isn't much of a world city, b/c that was something I knew for while before even knowing this report.


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## Guest (Jul 11, 2005)

TalB said:


> I didn't really need to GaWC to tell me that Dubai isn't much of a world city, b/c that was something I knew for while before even knowing this report.


Oh it most certainly is... It's on the same level as Manchester after all and we are capital of the Universe... :tongue:


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## hngcm (Sep 17, 2002)

The fact that Tijuana is on there and not Guadalajara or Monterrey proves that the list is BS.


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## Nick in Atlanta (Nov 5, 2003)

hngcm said:


> The fact that Tijuana is on there and not Guadalajara or Monterrey proves that the list is BS.


That has to be the be the best evidence of how this list deterioates after Alpha and Beta cities. Monterrey is so far ahead of Tijuana in everything, except maybe its proximity to Southern California, that to put it behind TJ is laughable.


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## Guest (Jul 12, 2005)

Nick in Atlanta said:


> That has to be the be the best evidence of how this list deterioates after Alpha and Beta cities. Monterrey is so far ahead of Tijuana in everything, except maybe its proximity to Southern California, that to put it behind TJ is laughable.


Personally I think the list is fine for the "developed" economies, but not for the "developing" ones. I'd say the US, Canadian, British, etc. cities are in the right places (bar the odd point movement due to recent developments).


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

Obviously Tijuana is on the list of *world* cities because it is interconnected to a higher degree with the world then Guadalajara or Monterey. It's proximity to the US plays a role in that.
It makes perfect sense...

The only thing that's wrong is people not understanding what the study is about...


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## Nick in Atlanta (Nov 5, 2003)

SHiRO said:


> Obviously Tijuana is on the list of *world* cities because it is interconnected to a higher degree with the world then Guadalajara or Monterey. It's proximity to the US plays a role in that.
> It makes perfect sense...


You could fly to LA from Monterrey faster than you could drive to LA from Tijuana. Tijuana-San Diego share the busiest border crossing in the world.


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

And?

"Interconnected" not only in the physical sense obviously...


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## hngcm (Sep 17, 2002)

SHiRO said:


> Obviously Tijuana is on the list of *world* cities because it is interconnected to a higher degree with the world then Guadalajara or Monterey. It's proximity to the US plays a role in that.
> It makes perfect sense...
> 
> The only thing that's wrong is people not understanding what the study is about...



Then why isn't San Diego in there?


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

Haha! Good question...
Probably because it isn't globally connected enough...


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## samsonyuen (Sep 23, 2003)

BTW, why is KC (and a lot of other cities) there but not Ottawa?


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## HighSpeedTrain (Jul 6, 2005)

Tijuana is as connected as Monterrey so is weird MTY is not at the same level.

Guadalajara is out of the world cities.


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## rogeliolucatero (Jul 11, 2005)

Rail Claimore said:


> True, these rankings are a bit old. I'd knock Paris down to an 11 and up Hong Kong to that level.


Whaaattt?!?! Once a city reaches a world city status it can't be knocked down! (Unless it completely dissappears). The first world cities ever were Paris and London righteously. Then New York in the early 20th century and Tokyo in the late.


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## Guest (Jul 14, 2005)

rogeliolucatero said:


> Whaaattt?!?! Once a city reaches a world city status it can't be knocked down! (Unless it completely dissappears). The first world cities ever were Paris and London righteously. Then New York in the early 20th century and Tokyo in the late.


Yes they can. It's a scientific measure of economic connectivity. If a city doesn't develop at the same rate as other cities they will eventually overtake it and become more economically connected.


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## mdude (Jul 8, 2005)

Nick in Atlanta said:


> Can you give me a definition for the above rating system, as well as a few examples of Advanced Producer Services, because if cities are being rated by this standard I want to know exactly what it consists of, if you don't mind?


advanced producer services (APS) are services that are provided by companies to other companies, as opposed to services that are provided by companies directly to consumers. for instance, kellogg company makes cereal for consumers, but another company is hired by kellogg to handle the logistics of shipping out the cereal to grocers. It doesn't provide a service to consumers directly. The shipping is an advanced producer service. This concept is part of the "tertiary economy" because it is outside of the realm of agriculture (the primary sector) and manufacturing (the secondary sector). It's important to know about the trends of companies that sell APS because it helps us identify not only the strengths of current companies in that region, but also the strengths of competing companies in competing regions. (among a lot of other important things).


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## defi (Jul 30, 2004)

how can you prove that Tijuana is as connected as Monterrey? Any statistics?


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

Uhh...this study?


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## shibuya_suki (Apr 24, 2005)

some people that they can not accept the fact that their city is not in alpha or even beta city...thats the problem GAWC do not consider those people

i think the hieractical order is quite good method...but their crietria put too much focus on economic ,globalization,lack of culture influence


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