These 15 Chinese Cities Are Everywhere You Want To Be.
Mastercard recently came out with its list of the 65 key cities driving growth in emerging markets worldwide. Fifteen Chinese cities made the list. (h/t China Business Blog)
The top ten cities worldwide were as follows:
1 Shanghai China
2 Beijing China
3 Budapest Hungary
4 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
5 Santiago Chile
6 Guangzhou China
7.Mexico City Mexico
8 Warsaw Poland
9 Bangkok Thailand
10 Shenzhen China
I like that list.
The fifteen Chinese cities that made the list are as follows:
1 Shanghai
2 Beijing
6 Guangzhou
10 Shenzhen
16 Xiamen
17 Chengdu
18 Dalian
20 Tianjin
20 Nanjing
22 Hangzhou
23 Wuhan
24 Chongqing
25 Qingdao
26 Xian
27 Harbin
Mastercard's listing report is actually quite good, as it goes well beyond the typical world city list by actually doing a good job explaining its criteria and by setting out all kinds of sub-lists. And though I might quibble a bit about the ranking of China's cities, I cannot think of even one that was unfairly left out. Can you?
Comments
Isn't that VISA's motto? Heh.
Posted by: Kai | November 3, 2008 3:43 AM
Foreign Policy has published a list of "2008 Global Cities" (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4509). It does not focus only on business and commerce, but there are significant overlaps of measurements: business activity, information exchange, human capital. There are 60 cities ranked.
The survey is designed and conducted by A.T. Kearney, The Chicago Council of Global Affairs, and Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.
The Chinese cities that made the list:
12 Beijing
20 Shanghai
52 Guangzhou
54 Shenzhen
59 Chongqing
I didn't list Hong Kong (5) since it is not considered an emerging market by MasterCard list.
Moscow (19) is the only other emerging market city in the top 20 of the Foreign Policy list.
For a large country like China, it makes much more sense to focus on regions/cities than country, particularly when the economic developments in China are so uneven. I would say, between country and city, it's probably more appropriate to talk about regions and city clusters.
Two emerging trends to watch closely in China is the formation of the city clusters and industrial clusters within a region. The three biggest city clusters in China are the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Bohai Bay. The provincial and city governments within the three regions are consciously pushing for regional integration. Within five years, the cities within the three regions will be linked by high-speed intercity rails and light-rails. There have been talks about 2-hours "living circles."
Yangtze River Delta:
Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou plus dozens of cities around them. They will be linked by 200-300 km/h high-speed rail services. There is also a plan to connect Shanghai and Hangzhou by Maglev which takes about 30 minutes to travel between the two.
Pearl River Delta:
Guangzhou has just published a revised metro and light-rail plan for public comments last week. The plan ambitiously extends the network to nearby cities with a clear objective to integrate the cities in the region.
Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Zhuhai-Hongkong and the cities around them will form a A-shape intercity rapid transit network and will be within 1 hour of each other in a few years.
Bohai Bay:
Beijing-Tianjin has already been linked by a 350 km/h high-speed intercity rail service, the fastest operating train in the world. It's been operating at 15-minute interval and booked to full capacity almost all the time.
The next step is to link Shijiazhuang, Tangshan, Zhangjiakou and Chengde with high-speed rail service, all around one hour of travel.
It's going to be fascinating to observe how these city clusters evolve in China in the next 5-10 years.
Posted by: greg | November 3, 2008 10:48 AM
Yes, i can think of two:
Wenzhou
Xianyang
The former has traditionally been underrated, so I'm not surprised it was once again overlooked.
Posted by: Rodriguez | November 3, 2008 5:30 PM
I am not surprised by the failure to include the two above cities at all, they don't belong on that list. I am a bit surprised by 2 inclusions and 2 that weren't included. To me, Suzhou has been developing at a faster clip than Hangzhou and is slowly becoming basically a suburb of Shanghai. Also, it's more or less anecdotal, but I feel that Shenyang's expansion and development is far more important in Dongbei than that of Harbin. Other than that, things look pretty much like they should.
Posted by: b. cheng | November 4, 2008 1:14 AM
What about Changsha, which the CCP is making in to a Green City as well as a Tech Capital?
Posted by: 尼克 | November 18, 2008 5:37 PM