Gotham topped a list of 66 metropolitan areas, measured by “clout,” in the Global Cities Index, released today by Bloomberg Rankings. The index measures “business activity; labor force; access to media and information; cultural amenities and political influence,” Bloomberg News said.
Beijing and Singapore are nipping at New York City’s heels, however, the study shows. In the next 10 to 20 years those cities are expected to overtake the city on the index.
Climate change and the stratification of wealth are among the things expected to be problematic for New York City, Bloomberg News said.
“The growing chasm between the very rich and the poor,” said James Parrott, chief economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute, “weakens our consumer base [and] makes it harder for the city to remain a truly open society with lots of opportunity.”
But the recent addition of the massive Cornell-Technion campus on Roosevelt Island worked in New York City’s favor.
“Our goal was to find a measure that would help corporate and government decision-makers determine which of the world’s cities will best attract and shape the future flow of people, ideas, capital and goods,” said Mike Hales, a partner at consulting firm A.T. Kearney, which aided in the study. [Bloomberg News]