Yeh it skyline at the moment is alot better then Birminghams, but in return, Birminghams new towers are an awful lot more asthetic then its compatriot. Its hard to say which city is more international as Birmingham apart from Las Vegas is the only city with 2 arenas in the worlds top 75. Its hosts the worlds largest motorsport, clothes, dog shows etc its hosted the G8 Summit, Eurovision song contest, Is the new home of the conservative political party, national lottery, Europes leading sporting city, accepts responsibilty for over 30% of all UK patents. 9% of the total worlds. Even oxygen was first discovered in the city
The only thing it lacks is a buisness center to attract major firms but this is all changing now with a pre-sale of its new 14 storey colmore plaza to KPG at £150m. It has 1 scheme in pre-planning which is going to accomodate over 2,000,000sqft of office space, its quite a possibility a top of the range high-rise (250m) skyscraper could be involved.
Frankfurt is the 2nd biggest financial market in Europe, a major world player. ammenity wise, maybe not but its ranked along side Toronto, which I personaly rate as a World city.
I guess its how you judge the credentials of a major metropolis.
