Greener Big Apple Beats Tech Tokyo for Innovation in 12th Annual City Ranking of 500 Cities

CITIES EMBRACE NEED TO BECOME MORE HUMAN, GREEN AND SMART– 2THINKNOW

EMBARGOED UNTIL MONDAY 11 NOVEMBER 2019 16:58 NEW YORK TIME / TUESDAY 12 NOVEMBER 05:58 AM AEST MELBOURNE

2THINKNOW // MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – New York topped the 12^th annual list of the world’s most innovative cities on Tuesday, taking back the lead from Tokyo and London after embracing a more human and sustainable lifestyle, start-up economy and new smart technologies in the Big Apple. This result was despite Tokyo's tech edge in burgeoning fields like robotics.

In a first, eleven of the top twenty urban centres of the Innovation Cities Index were in the United States. The remainder of cities were in Europe and Asia. Singapore (5) just beat a resurgent Paris (6) off strong smart, tech, mobility and infrastructure improvements. Notably Paris’ recent rail refurbishment programs, and start-up sector are a symbol of some resurgent French innovation. Los Angeles strong entertainment and tech sector saw it sweep up to 4^th globally.

“What really surprised us this year was a United States bounce-back at the top of the league” said Christopher Hire, Director of 2thinknow, which publishes the annual ranking. “However, there were quite dramatic movements by cities up and down all across the USA, and globally as well -- highlighting strong volatility and shortening the time window for commercialising new ideas.”.

Chicago(7) entered the top ten for the first time ever, with burgeoning start-ups, innovation seeding across many industries, a sustainable food scene and top-ranked universities. The Windy City beat out stalwart and past multiple-year winner, Boston (8^th place and home to Harvard University). Boston has the honour of being one of the only cities in the global top ten in every year the ranking was published.

“Our Index is designed to measure innovation conditions, and often predicts rising cities before other rankings. It is up to the city whether they can keep on top of the latest trends, and exploit their innovation potential ongoingly. Cities that place well every year do that, which is not as simple as it sounds for urban areas to adapt and transform.”

Detroit moved up 25 places as the mobility sector became more important to the global economy. Other US rising stars moving up more than 25 places included Louisville (Kentucky), Dayton (Ohio) and San Antonio (Texas).

In broader Asia, despite the trade dispute, Chinese cities Shenzhen (53) and Beijing (up 11 places to 26) both rose for innovation, among other cities as a sign of their global power. Regionally, Jakarta (119) rose a notable 58 places based on start-up sector, growth and new reforms.

It was a mixed race in pre-Brexit United Kingdom, where London dominates the UK and some of the surprise improvers were often-overlooked Birmingham (up 23 places), Nottingham (up 44 places) and Newcastle (up 19 places). While Manchester’s property-focus has seen the city give up some of long-time leadership in innovation. In Europe, German cities were led by Berlin (12), with Munich (27, down 6 places) and Hamburg (46) following, with a poorer performance due to slowed digital transformation in many sectors. Barcelona regained its long-term innovation status rising to 21^st globally, ahead of Madrid in 28^th place.

“We found that there is a real split between cities and regions with urbanisation driving innovation. Although concerns about equitable growth remain and are growing every day, this is repairable by better policy settings.” said Hire in a statement.

Dubai’s example for smart cities technology made the Emirate the number one city in the Gulf rankings for several years (31, up 2 places). Dubai is launching a festival of innovation called Dubai 2020. Dampened by recent political instability, Tel Aviv (41, up 3 places) was next in the Mid-East region due to start-ups, universities and strong cyber-technology, as well as Israel’s venture capital diaspora.

In Australia, Melbourne (11) became number one in Australia, beating Sydney (15) for the first time in the list, which scores cities on a broad range of 162 indicators including start-up economy, 13 mobility indicators, sustainability, neighbourhoods and technology among others. Brisbane became the third Australian city to enter the global top fifty cities for the first time.

Although African cities continued to be among the lowest ranked, there were signs of a rising tide. The good news was the first ever 2% overall rise in the average ranking of top African cities.

Amidst Brexit chaos, London ranked third after declining against last year’s winner to Tokyo as Europe and the United Kingdom marginally lost ground at the top of the league. Broader Europe scored fewer cities in the top 20 than in previous years, but the same total number of cities in the top 100.

New Yorks Hudson Yards development and High Line park were popular symbols of why the city was managing to forge a new way in innovation, according to the analysts.

BACKGROUND

All indexes are published on www.innovation-cities.com/indexes along with further resources. All data in the Index can be purchased. The publisher and creator of the city ranking is 2thinknow, a private business established in Melbourne in 2006 from research started in Vienna in 2005.

ADDED QUOTES/COMMENTS

“An interesting phenomenon is that in larger GDP countries innovation started centralising in largest and smallest cities, with difficulties being experienced in second-tier national cities,” Hire added.

“What’s interesting is the US is divided into unequal cities with more winners, and Europe is more focussed on equally-ranked cities across the European continent,” Hire added. “The UK is becoming more unequal like the United States, and this explains voter discontent.”

Media Release

ENDS--- SPOKESPERSON

Christopher Hire
Director Data, 2THINKNOW
Melbourne +61386780319 California +16692413435 Vienna +43720775886
media@2thinknow.com (Email for Report excerpt and Excel rankings) - EMAIL PREFERRED AT FIRST

CORRECTIONS/CLARIFICATIONS:

The following typos in early versions, have been clarified above. An earlier draft said Chicago entered the top 5 (this was in the Americas region). The city is in the top 10 globally, at position 7, but within top 5 in Americas regional city ranking. Similarly, Singapore was stated as number one in Asia, but this referred to the Asia (Pacific) Sub-region excluding Japan. Tokyo is number on in overall Asia regional city ranking. We are sorry for any confusion.

Any other correction/clarifications will be noted here.

Over 75% of cities, with a population of over one million residents monitor the Innovation Cities Index results, and many major entities such as Samsung, PWC, Brookings Institution, UN-Habitat and Jones Lang LaSalle use the Index results to assess broad-based city innovation.

2thinknow supplies raw data to Fortune 500 corporations and leading management consultants to assist them with making key business decisions.

Melbourne based company 2thinknow was started in 2006 as a commercial data provider and training organization, who have modeled the innovation process based on city data. 2thinknow is the world’s first innovation agency established in Melbourne in 2006. The Innovation Cities Program by 2thinknow commenced in 2007 from 2005 research. 2thinknow develops innovative data collection and analysis techniques based on sector innovation by city location. 2thinknow.com

2thinknow delivers City Benchmarking Data, analyst reports, the Innovation Course and other innovation services to city, business and government clients. See 2thinknow.com

INDEXES TEXT LINKS

GLOBAL: http://innovation-cities.com/?p=18842

AMERICAS: http://innovation-cities.com/?p=18843

ASIA: http://innovation-cities.com/?p=18840

EUROPE: http://innovation-cities.com/?p=18839

EMERGING: http://innovation-cities.com/?p=18838

CITY RESOURCES:

Supporting Analysis Report: http://report.innovation-cities.com (Compiled and released after data)

Raw Data: https://citybenchmarkingdata.com

Updated Index

2thinknow’s City Benchmarking Data set contains over 2000 cities, of which 500 are currently selected for full benchmarking. In 2011, the number of cities appearing in the yearly published scores and rankings was 331, up from 289 cities in 2010. The new inclusions reflected previously omitted destinations in the Emerging, Asian and Americas regions. There is a base level of development, population and services required to appear in the Index.

The Innovation Cities™ Index purpose is to measure the development of innovation economies globally.

The index measures the 3 Factor preconditions for innovation -- Cultural Assets, Human Infrastructure and Networked Markets.

To make it easy to read the indexes 2thinknow publish a global top 100, global full, and 4 regional indexes: Americas, Asia, Europe and Emerging.

Quick facts about the Index.

• The worldwide rankings are produced annually by analysts at innovation consulting analysts, 2thinknow.
• The index is not a survey, but based on data science & data analysis independently researched by 2thinknow analysts.
• The index was first produced in 2007 with 22 cities from 95 profiled.
• City Benchmarking Data, contains all 500 global cities benchmarked on 162 city indicators.
• Data is updated between August and early next year (until finished), with more than 50% of indicators being refreshed in this period.
• Explanation of the 162 city indicators, and how cities can become innovation economies are contained in the Innovation Cities Analysis Report, from 2thinknow. http://report.innovation-cities.com
• All cities scores are weighted against 30 current change trends (detailed and available in the report).

Reproducing the Index

The indexes and supporting materials are copyright and used under license by 2thinknow. You may reproduce the statistics and indexes in any reasonable form, graphics, or data mash-up as long as you attribute it to 2thinknow and do not modify the numbers or otherwise mislead. Print journalists can attribute in the standard fashion, or the other easy way to do this online is as follows: Source: 2thinknow Innovation Cities™ Program: www.innovation-cities.com [or the link of the page you are referencing] 2thinknow do reserve all rights, including the right to ask content to be removed.

City Benchmarking Data.

City benchmarking data can be used to create your own indexes or rankings. This can ordered by contacting 2thinknow for City Data Audits, or comparisons between any cities on 1 segment or all segments of the economy. There are 31 industry and community segments. Further information is available from 2thinknow ICP Team, by contacting us here or calling Melbourne +61 3 86780319. Or, you can visit the City Benchmarking Data site here for full details.

Links to the cities indexes & national statistics

Attribute to: “INNOVATION CITIES INDEX  BY 2thinknow” URL: www.innovation-cities.com/indexes

Ranking Resources: Annual Overview | FAQ | Media Release | Indexes Background | Media | City Resources | Method

All 2019 Indexes: Top 100 | Global | Americas | Europe | Asia | Emerging > Download Excel + Newsletter

Want to reproduce this list? You Can. First, see 'Reproducing this list' below.

While the Innovation Cities™ Index is free, detailed data is always available for purchase.

The Innovation Cities Indexes (the “Indexes”) are for information purposes only and are intended for as a general purpose ranking measuring the relative importance of cities to the innovation economy. Practise in this area is continually changing and emerging, so the methodologies and processes change from year to year, and the availability of data changes from city to city. While the Indexes have been prepared based upon the best available information, they are provided on an “as-is” basis, and 2thinknow accepts no responsibility/liability for the validity/accuracy (or otherwise) of the resources/data used to compile the Indexes. In no event will 2thinknow be liable to for any decision made or action taken in reliance of the results obtained through the use of, or the information and/or data contained in or provided by, the Indexes.

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Note: Those seeking tailored data of comparative city performance to answer research questions should purchase City Benchmarking Data from 2thinknow, and/or create scorecards or comparative analysis tailored to their specific circumstances.