World’s A RANKING OF GLOBAL PLACE EQUITY 2021 Where to live, work, invest and visit The Performance of the World’s Best Cities: The Methodology — 06 Pc Pd Po Ps Pg Pm World’s Top 100 Cities Profiles — 08 The World’s Best Cities Performance by Category — 52 BESTCITIES.ORG Love cities? Join WRLDCTY, the planet’s • 3 days to shape the cities of tomorrow and largest virtual cities experience them like never before festival, from home. • 100+ speakers, including Richard Florida, Bjarke Ingels, Jennifer Keesmaat and Chip Conley • 20+ urban experiences ranging from Sunrise October 22 – 24, 2020 Yoga from Santa Monica to Dim Sum Magic from Accesible for replay anytime. Hong Kong to Burlesque 101 from Brooklyn • Thousands of global citizens and city lovers Learn more at WRLDCTY.com eager to learn about the future of cities WELCOME TO THE 2021 RANKING OF THE WORLD'S BEST CITIES Resonance Consultancy is building the most comprehensive city rankings on the planet. Here’s why this matters now more than ever. As leading advisors in tourism, real estate and economic incorporate user-generated data to quantify the number of development for more than a decade, our team has quality restaurants, shops, nightlife and other experiences conducted extensive research on the rise of cities, the key that make urban living so alluring. trends propelling this growth and the factors that shape our perception of urban centers as desirable places to live, visit Based on the data we have collected over the past five years, and invest. we know that a city’s performance for factors such as Face- book check-ins, Instagram mentions, recommended culinary The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged us and our cities in experiences, museums, nightlife, culture and shopping have ways none of us have ever experienced before. It’s caused some of the highest correlations with not only the number us to reexamine and rethink the way we’ll want to live, work of visitors a city receives, but with investment and economic and play in the future. If there’s one thing that social distan- growth as well. Rebooting this software of urban experien- cing has taught us, it’s that the shared spaces we were asked ces will be even more important than investments in infra- to close and avoid—from parks to restaurants to sporting structure when it comes to a city’s recovery from this crisis. venues, museums and galleries—are what we cherish most about the cities we live in or love to visit. The rankings for these experiential factors reflect the performance of cities for each metric prior to the crisis. The planet’s large cities—with MSA populations of more than No doubt some restaurants, shops and other unique local a million people—face imminent and myriad challenges that experiences will not survive the loss in clientele and revenue will define their next decade and beyond. that the pandemic has wrought, and the results a year from now may vary significantly from one city to the next. Our Just take two obvious and looming but diametrically data will continue providing a unique perspective to quantify opposed inevitabilities: flight from the perceived density the impact the crisis has had on cities from an experiential danger of pandemic-stricken cities by those with the means, point of view. and the rising homeless population due to unprecedented unemployment and inability to afford housing. But survive they will, and some will even thrive. The most likely candidates being those that sit atop these rankings. The world’s cities would be derailed by just one of those We hope this report will inspire you to celebrate and tsunamis, never mind both barreling down simultaneously. rediscover these global urban centers when the time is To say a reinvention is upon us is an understatement. right. In the meantime, let’s take care of one another and our communities in order to make our cities the best they To capture this reality in our rankings—now in their sixth can possibly be in the weeks, months and years to come. year —we have also expanded and evolved. We have added three new factors to our ranking. For our Prosperity category, To discuss how Resonance can help your city or community, we have added the unemployment rate of a city (as of July please get in touch. 2020, the latest numbers available at press time) and the Gini Index of Income Inequality. In our Place category, we added the number of COVID-19 cases per million (as of July 31, 2020) for each city. While this Best Cities ranking incorporates standard metrics for factors such as these three new ones, as well as our Chris Fair, President & CEO standards like weather, crime and household incomes, what Resonance Consultancy distinguishes our methodology from all others is that we also [email protected] RESONANCECO.COM 03 TRAVEL IS A FORCE FOR GOOD We can play a part in the remaking of the world’s great cities, by supporting local businesses and investing in the same things that make a city great—its culture, its people, and its infrastructure. As a long-time New Yorker, I find it eerie to see once lively What does it take to be a good guest in a host city? It starts stretches of theaters, comedy clubs, hotels, and cinemas with respecting the city’s rules—masks on, social distancing in boarded or papered up, advertising events from March place—and finding ways to support local communities on the 2020 like they’re frozen in time. COVID has emptied city neighborhood level, even street by street. The world’s great streets in the last six months, prompting some fair-weather cities are rich with personality, and small business owners are locals to claim “NYC is dead.” (Don’t worry: Jerry Seinfeld central to the making, and remaking, of a city. came to the city’s defense.) The notion that a city as vibrant as New York—or London, Paris, Tokyo—could actually So start small: by shopping local and tipping aggressively; by “die” short of nuclear intervention or a revolution is a little going off-peak and seeking out lesser-known sites; by having laughable. But parts like Midtown Manhattan—typically empathy for the people and places you visit. Let your values corridors of white-collar business, nightlife, and culture— lead the way you spend, and this year’s list of the World’s Best do seem to be hibernating. And yes, that can be unnerving Cities, compiled and revised with COVID-era responses in mind for the city that never sleeps. by Resonance Consultancy, set your course for future travel. But look beyond the financial centers or traditional At AFAR.com, the exclusive editorial partner of Resonance downtowns and you’ll see late-night parties in the parks Consultancy for the World’s Best Cities and America’s Best (on a Sunday, no less). Same for Paris, where its locals are Cities, released this summer, we discuss where, how, and reveling in a city free(er) of tourists. when to be better travelers throughout this crisis. Let’s learn to travel responsibly together. Could COVID prompt a reset of great urban centers around the world? How will they rebound from this pandemic, and how can we continue to support the cities we love from far away? At AFAR, we have believed since the brand’s inception a decade ago in travel as a force for good. Travel does not have to be the villain in the COVID narrative—especially if Laura Dannen Redman we all learn how to travel responsibly. Digital Content Director, AFAR Media RESONANCECO.COM 04 HOSIER LANE GRAFFITI, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA CONTENTS The Performance of the World’s Best Cities: The Methodology — 06 World’s Top 100 Cities Profiles — 08 World’s Best Cities Performance by Category — 52 THE PERFORMANCE OF THE WORLD’S BEST CITIES: THE METHODOLOGY Resonance Consultancy ranks the world’s cities (principal cities of metropolitan areas with populations of more than one million) by using a combination of statistical performance and qualitative evaluations by locals and visitors in 25 areas grouped into six core categories. Principal cities are defined as the largest city in each metropolitan statistical area. THE SIX CORE CATEGORIES Pc PLACE Po PEOPLE Pg PROGRAMMING Pd PRODUCT Ps PROSPERITY Pm PROMOTION Pc PLACE Pd PRODUCT Our most layered category quantifies a city’s physical This is a ranking of the “hardware” of a city—often the sense of place. To score a city within our Place category, most difficult metric for cities to get right. Our product we evaluate the perceived quality of its natural and built category studies a city’s key institutions, attractions and environments. From how often the sun shines to the infrastructure. A city’s infrastructure and institutions safety of the streets, several readily measurable, oft-cited shape its identity via the quantity, quality and reputation factors influence our perceptions. of these “products.” Expensive and difficult to develop Weather Average number of sunny days (National and maintain, exceptional, recognizable products are Climatic Data Center, Weatherbase) often found only in large, cosmopolitan cities. Safety Homicide rate (United Nations Office on Drugs and Airport Connectivity Number of direct destinations Crime, UN-Habitat, Eurostat, FBI, and national data sources) served by the city’s airports (Google Flights) Sights & Landmarks Number of quality neighborhoods Attractions Number of quality attractions recommended and landmarks recommended by locals and visitors by locals and visitors (TripAdvisor.com) (TripAdvisor.com) Museums Number of quality museums and arts institutions Parks & Outdoors Number of quality parks and recommended by locals and visitors (TripAdvisor.com) outdoor activities recommended by locals and visitors University Ranking Score of the top local university (TripAdvisor.com) (U.S.