London, Paris and New York City completed the podium, while Dubai was ranked at sixth place among the world’s top 10 cities, according to Resonance Consultancy’s ninth annual World’s Best Cities Report, 2024, released this week.
The consultancy – boasting over two decades of experience in advising on destinations as well as economic and urban development – announced ‘The 100 Global Cities Shaping Tomorrow’, ranking them according to livability, lovability and prosperity.
Dubai was rated as a better city to live, work and prosper than Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Washington, Toronto, Boston, Melbourne, Zurich, Sydney among others.
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Chris Fair, President & CEO of Resonance Consultancy, said: “Resonance analyses 270+ global cities (principal cities of metropolitan areas with populations of more than one million) to determine the Top 100 by using a combination of core statistics and qualitative evaluations and recommendations by locals and visitors in digital channels such as Tripadvisor, Google, Facebook and Instagram.
“The team at Resonance has conducted extensive research on the rise of cities, the key trends propelling their growth and the factors that shape our perception of urban centers as desirable places to live, visit and invest,” added Fair.
“The rankings are still built from 24 subcategories that are used to analyze the measure of performance of each city”, he added, as well those cities that have historically shown positive correlations with attracting employment, investment and/or visitors.
These criteria include assessing “livable” amenities such as walkability and outdoor green spaces, as well as “coveted talent magnets and prosperity drivers like nightlife, restaurants and posts on Instagram”.
Based on each city’s performance across these various methodologies, these are the World’s Top 10 Best Cities for 2024:
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London, United Kingdom
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Paris, France
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New York, United States
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Tokyo, Japan
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Singapore
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates
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San Francisco, United States
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Barcelona, Spain
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Amsterdam, Netherlands
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Seoul, South Korea
Fair defined the basis of assessing cities citing how “the world’s urban centers are the engines of their regional and national economies and, importantly, the global economy”.
“For centuries, they’ve been badges of human ingenuity”, he added.
Resonance defined a city’s ‘Livability’ by quantifying a city’s physical sense of place. This includes assessing a city’s sights and landmarks, museums and art institutions, walk score, airport connectivity and more.
The consultancy measured a city’s ‘Lovability’ by the relative vibrancy and quality of place. Its research indicated that “the more vibrant the city is in terms of its culture, sports, dining and nightlife, the more visitors, young professionals and large corporations it attracts.”
‘Resonance’ was measured both the educational attainment level of the city’s population and the percentage of people participating in the labor force. This includes the number of Fortune Global 500 corporate headquarters residing in a city, number of startups in a city as well as GDP per capita and education attainment.
Dubai ranks third among top global cities, ahead of New York, London and Paris
Dubai came in at sixth place globally, described as the “The Vegas of Arabia”, and at number four on the prosperity index.
It was ranked number eight in the ‘Attractions’ subcategory, due to its massive malls, aquariums, indoor ski parks, dancing fountains, fantasy theme parks and more. It is also on track to accommodate its record tourists as it will soon have more hotel rooms than larger cities like London or New York.
The report also outlined the city’s 2040 Urban Masterplan — as set out by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, vice president and ruler of Dubai. The plan calls for developing a “20-minute city”— allowing residents access to 80% of their daily needs and destinations within 20 minutes by foot or bike – making the cosmopolitan city more cohesive.
For perspective, the capital city of UAE, Abu Dhabi, termed the “new cultural capital,” was ranked as 25, while Riyadh, Saudi Arabia came in at 28. Doha, Qatar came in at 36th place.
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London topped the list of cities this year, coming in high on the ‘Livability’ and ‘Lovability’ indices, due to its buoyancy and remaining high in the global discourse.
The report added that its buoyancy was apparent despite Brexit and global lockdowns and demonstrated by a sinking currency that has attracted investment, priced-out tourists as well as new residents who are snapping up luxury homes.
London also ranked third for cities with the biggest international traveler spend in 2022, added the report.
Additionally, it was noted that London pulled in the most foreign direct investments in tech from international companies since 2018, ahead of New York, Singapore and Dubai.
New York City came in third mainly driven by tourism revenue. Nearly 70 million people visited in 2019 and spent $46 billion across various amenities.
Singapore came in a fifth place, described as “Asia’s most modern, well-organized and captivating urban centers,” by Resonance.
Additionally, Singapore was also named as the most expensive city in the world for luxury living by the Global Wealth & Lifestyle Report 2023, published by Swiss wealth management firm Julius Baer Group LTD earlier this year.
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