China dominates top spots in Global Cities 30 index while London’s place slides on Brexit vote
China has claimed three of the top five spots in an inaugural Global Cities 30 index, while London has slipped from its intended fourth spot to 10th following the vote to leave the EU.
Shanghai was crowned the top global city in the list, compiled by real estate fund Schroders out of an analysis of 161 cities, followed by New York in second place and the northeastern Chinese city of Tianjin. Chinese capital Beijing and Dallas, Texas, rounded off the top five.
The index was compiled on factors such as each city’s projected economic growth, disposable incomes among its citizens and the working age of its population.
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“It should be no surprise China’s cities rank so highly given it has strong factors such as GDP, working population and retail sales,” Hugo Machin, co-head of global real estate securities, said.
“Although it has slowed recently China is still growing more strongly than the rest of the world and we believe it will become a much bigger part of our forecast over time.”
The remaining spots in the top 10 were shared between China, the US and London, with Shenzhen, Los Angeles, Houston, Washington DC and the UK capital coming from sixth through to 10th place respectively.
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London had been ranked fourth in the index, Schroders said, but fell to 10th after the Brexit vote.
“London’s fall in the index should not prompt despondency,” Machin said. “It remains one of our favourite cities, with more high-skilled knowledge-based workers than New York and with huge transport infrastructure profits, such as Crossrail, making a tangible difference to its economic future.”
The full list of economic powerhouses in the Global Cities 30 index was:
| RANK | CITY |
| 1 | Shanghai |
| 2 | New York |
| 3 | Tianjin |
| 4 | Beijing |
| 5 | Dallas |
| 6 | Shenzhen |
| 7 | Los Angeles |
| 8 | Houston |
| 9 | Washington |
| 10 | London |
| 11 | Chicago |
| 12 | Atlanta |
| 13 | Paris |
| 14 | Phoenix |
| 15 | Tokyo |
| 16 | Miami |
| 17 | Philadelphia |
| 18 | Toronto |
| 19 | Melbourne |
| 20 | Chongqing |
| 21 | Boston |
| 22 | San Francisco |
| 23 | Sydney |
| 24 | Seattle |
| 25 | Osaka-Kyoto |
| 26 | Hong Kong |
| 27 | Singapore |
| 28 | Ontario |
| 29 | Nagoya |
| 30 | Minneapolis |