
We need to open our eyes wider and all our inner senses to feel the spirit of the alpha-town! But is that the only thing that we can use to check if London is a global city? The answer is clearly no – a set of dry statistics even based on real facts isn’t enough to understand the true meaning of a global city. In general, I agree that the statistics, infographics, researches will help us expand the understanding of a given issue in numbers. Both language and capital are further proofs of London global status. If we’ll check languages spoken in London – we’ll find out that almost 100 of them are often used in city. Most of the research highlights the trio most important financial centers of the world: London, New York, Tokyo.

Almost all researchers have identified a global city is a global financial centre, centre of all possible financial services. If we continue the conversation of identification what is a global city, there are two powerful tools that help us define one – language and free capital. That is definite confirmation of London being a global city. In both ratings London took strong second place. The GCO is new this year: It evaluates the future potential of 125 cities based on the rate of change across four dimensions-Personal Well-being, Economics, Innovation, and Governance. The GCI provides a unique assessment of global engagement for 125 cities representing all continents and regions, measuring how globally engaged each city is across 26 metrics in five dimensions-Business Activity, Human Capital, Information Exchange, Cultural Experience, and Political Engagement. We can check the latest statistics from AT Kearney Global Cities 2015 which includes two ratings - Global Cities Index (GCI) and Global Cities Outlook (GCO).

In modern theory “world city” is a center for global socio-political life and the world economy.Īccording to Saskia Sassen we should distinguish four key groups to evaluate “world city”: Financial and business services Management and control activities Creative activities TourismĪnd even without going into the details, we can put a check mark against each item when considering London.


If you start to delve into the history of the original concept of a “world city”, in the literature it is usually a reference to the city of a special cultural and religious significance such as Rome or Paris, often capitals of former empires. This is the city that has a huge impact on the world community. Global city or in other words “world city” or “alpha-city”, is a city that creates an important production chain in world’s economic, political and cultural system.
