Sunday, June 17, 2012

Cities that are not world class

I've wasted a lot of time trying to rank cities, and I think I have a pretty good list of 118 cities with a nominal GDP of over $70 billion/year.  Here are cities that were in my first list of 100 that I don't think are world class cities, with some remarks:

Delhi.  This city has a population of about 23 million, but the average GDP in India is only $1400/person. Delhi is probably above the national average.  A news article says that the GDP of Delhi is estimated at 3.13 lakh crore for  FY 2011-2012.  Well a lakh is 100,000 and a crore is 10 million, so that equals 3.13 trillion rupees.  At 55 rupees/dollar that is about $56 billion/year.  What about Mumbai?  I read that Mumbai generates about 6% of the GDP for the entire country.  India's GDP is about $1.67 trillion, and 6% of that is about $100 billion.

Geneva.  Geneva is a very wealthy, but the metro area only has 466,000 in it.

Jersey/Guernsey/Isle of Man.  Each has less than 100,000.

Edinburgh/Glasgow.  Again these are too small to make the list.

Cairo.  Another mega-city made of up very poor people.

Kuala Lumpur.  This almost makes the list as it has a much higher GDP than Cairo or Delhi, but it is still less than $10,000/person and the population is 6.5 million.

Auckland/Wellington, New Zealand.  Auckland has 1.4 million, and Wellington has about 400,000. Even combined, these are too small.  The whole country has a GDP of only $161 billion.

Luxembourg.  Too small.
Helsinki.  Too small
Honolulu.  Also too small.
Kolkata. Too poor
Bogota. Too poor.
Calgary.  Just below the limit of the list. There are only 1.3 million people there.
Manama, Bahrain.  Too small.
Caracas.  Too poor.
Bermuda/BVI/Cayman Islands.  Very wealthy but too small.
Lima.  Too poor.
Bangalore.  Too poor.


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