Canada Rankings
 

Rankings are usually subjective, often headscratchers, but worthwhile snapshots if we take them with a grain of salt. Perhaps a thread where we can post findings from various organizations, studies, etc. as it relates to Canada? I'll start with one the 2020 Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) ranking produced by the geography department, Loughborough University, UK. Hamilton and Victoria should be there and I'd put Toronto in the Alpha+ category. Other than that it's ok.



2020 Global City Classification


https://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/images/world2020t.jpg
https://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/world2020t.html

In America, how do Canadian cities stack up?


Alpha++
New York

Alpha+

Alpha
Los Angeles, Toronto, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Chicago

Alpha-
Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Montreal, Santiago, Boston



Beta+
Washington, Dallas, Bogota, Miami, Houston, Lima, Atlanta, Vancouver

Beta
Denver, Philadelphia, Seattle, Rio de Janeiro, Panama City

Beta-
Calgary, Monterrey, Caracas, San Jose, Tampa, Minneapolis, San Diego, Guatemala City, Quito, San Salvador, Detroit, Austin



Gamma+
San Jose (USA), Charlotte, St. Louis, Guadalajara, Medellin, Phoenix, Orlando, Baltimore

Gamma
San Juan, Santo Domingo, Ottawa, Guayaquil, Managua, La Paz, Nashville, Tegucigalpa

Gamma-
Asuncion, Nassau, Cleveland, Kansas City, Queretaro, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City, Columbus, Sacramento, Belo Horizonte, Edmonton



High Sufficiency
Tijuana, Port of Spain, Curitiba, Hartford, Puebla, Raleigh, Indianapolis, Brasilia, San Antonio, Cincinnati

Sufficiency
Merida, Juarez, Cali, Pittsburgh, Portland, Las Vegas, Aguascalientes, Jacksonville, Richmond, Campinas, San Luis Potosi, Leon, Valparaiso, Oklahoma City, Des Moines, San Pedro Sula, Tulsa, Valencia, Buffalo, Louisville, Winnipeg, Rochester, Halifax, Hamilton (Bermuda), Birmingham, Recife, Santa Cruz, Mexicali, New Orleans, Quebec City, Saskatoon, Kingston (Jamaica), Rosario, Barranquilla, Chihuahua, Memphis, Palo Alto, Omaha, Honolulu, Harrisburg, Salvador, Goiania

That list is utter bullshit.

"alpha, beta, gamma, high sufficiency, sufficiency" ... not quite how I remember the Greek alphabet.

What is the list supposed to be measuring? I don't see any connection at all between the cities in the various categories ... I definitely don't think Wuxi belongs in the same class as Izmir, though.

The alpha part of the list seems pretty accurate at first glance, but once you get into the beta, gamma and especially the "high sufficiency" and "sufficiency" categories, it starts looking more like general examples than any kind of definitive list.

In what are these places "sufficient" or "highly sufficient"?

According to Globalization and World Cities Research Network:

...that website looks like it is from 2003 and they just took a screenshot of an Excel spreadsheet for the list.

I can't take them that seriously...

I find it bizarre that any list of global cities wouldn't have Tokyo in the top tier..

How so, assuming they applied standard criteria? :shrug:

IIRC that list basically measures how integrated a city is into the global economic sphere. The higher up the list, generally the more diversified the economy and the more that decisions made in that city tend to "affect things" from a business perspective. The "sufficiency" cities are less influential in terms of decisions made, but are important cogs in the trade/manufacturing networks and are regional hubs for business and trade.

I'm not sure exactly what numbers these would be based on but I don't think there's much to read into the fact that Saskatoon is listed and Regina is not, for example.

If applying this criteria places Dubai at the same level as Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai, perhaps they need criteria that measures something a bit more relevant.

In this context that makes sense to me. Dubai seems to be like Paris for that region in terms of where people would be most likely to travel to when doing in-person business with a major corportation, etc, including people from many other nearby countries. I can't think of another city in the Middle East that would really be like that (without looking at the chart too closely, I'm guessing Tel Aviv is a distant second). They're not measuring which is "more cultural" or anything like that.

Basically, it's showing that someone in Halifax is more likely to be visiting (or dealing with) "Head Office, in Toronto" than someone from Toronto visiting "Head Office, in Halifax". And that if you're in Halifax you're not likely to need to leave town to deal with the main regional office (whereas for the SW Ontario cities the largest regional offices are clustered in and around Toronto, so the dynamic is a bit different). Or another metric: how often will the average person (from anywhere in the world) deal with someone from any of these places in any sort of business transaction or conversation?

This list is utter bullshit as it lists Baltimore as Gamma? that place is a fucking dumpster fire right now what a joke.

Rangoon over Minsk?

Idiots.

Osaka and Quito in the same category. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

These lists are always too flattering to cities in the Anglo world. Anglos deciding on what the criteria and weightings and ranking cities on that criteria/weightings will always introduce bias.

There is just no way that Tokyo shouldn't be top tier.

Toronto equivalent to Paris Tokyo Hong Kong etc.?

Really????

.

I can’t exactly be sure of the accuracy of other cities, but I think Winnipeg seems to be in the accurate place. Important regional hub but not quite as important as Indianapolis. Hopefully it will be bumped to a higher in the next decade and that will depend on new investments.

I’m fairly content with Toronto’s standing. Obviously a higher tier is better, but the cities above it do have more resources in the categories considered, based on their criteria and formulas.

That organization didn't put Toronto in the same Group as those cities. Even if they had, it doesn't mean they're equivalent. There's obviously some variation within each group. And it bears repeating that this is only the opinion of that study based on the criteria they deemed relevant. They've been putting this ranking out annually for a very long time. Some of it I agree with, some of it I don't.

Alpha+: Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong
Alpha: Toronto

Indeed. How is Dubai so relevant beyond the bling-bling ?