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Trying to figure out how important a city is to the global system is… lets just say challenging. Cities influence the world in lots of ways – culturally, economically, scientifically, as travel hubs and a whole lot more. That said, some ambitious folks have tried.
A ‘global city’ indicates a city that’s considered important to the economic system of the entire world. So truly globally important cities have lots of financial services that serve as the headquarters of large corporations, or host institutions that are decision making powers over the global system – think the United Nations, NATO or the European Union.
So, how do you rank the cities? Well, the journal Foreign Policy, along with A.T. Kearney and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, got together to rank the world’s cities according to their importance to the global system.
New York City and London were found to be the most important cities in the world, the only two cities that received ‘Alpha++’ status. This distinction is reserved for cities that are the most integrated into the global economy of all other cities. Basically, if something happens to London or New York, the whole world’s going to feel it.
They were followed by slightly less integrated Alpha+ cities like Hong Kong, Paris and Tokyo. These cities fill very advanced, yet niched services for the global economy.
Denver sits several rungs lower in the Beta category. This category is reserved for cities that link moderately important economic regions to the rest of the world. So, if something happens in Denver, the Rocky Mountain region would feel the pain, and so would anybody reliant on goods coming out of the region.
That puts Denver in the same category as cities like Detroit, Nairobi, Seattle, Hanoi and Antwerp. Not quite as important as Geneva, Casablanca, Bogata, but still ahead of St. Petersburg, Baltimore, St. Louis and San Jose, CA.
Not too shabby for a quiet mountain town.
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