Finance and Trade flows:
- London, New York and Tokyo are ranked as the top three cities for connectivity. Sydney is ranked as 14. Sydney’s strongest links are with major financial centres of Asia: Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo. London’s strongest links are with New York, as well as with Tokyo.
- London and New York define the only city-dyad (city pair) that actually has a name: NYLON. These two cities have become ‘a transatlantic metropolis that is the heart-beat of the global economy.’
People Flows:
- World Cities are centres of knowledge and new economy skills
- Flows of professionals between World Cities reflects the interconnected nature of the TNCs, Higher Education Institutes and firms which are located in many of the world’s dominant urban areas
- PriceWaterhouseCoopers is the second largest accountancy network in the world. PwC is a network of firms in 157 countries with more than 184,000 people. Its professional workforce move between these cities. Their offices are located in various areas including New York, London and Sydney.
‘Soft Power: Rating cities’ abilities to create and attract highly skilled professionals’
Infrastructure: Global airline network
- World cities consume a large amount of the world’s flights- there are often 40 direct flights per day between New York and London
- The NYLON route accounts for 35 percent of the industry’s entire transatlantic revenue
- Increasingly people are commuting between London and NY for professional business purposes.
Infrastructure: local infrastructure
- World Cities are often home to expansive railway networks linking regional areas to the city and the world
- The New York Subway system is one of the most efficient people transports in the entire world. Conveniently and comfortably transporting over 4.3 million people every day all over NY. Over 1 billion people go through the turnstiles each year
Infrastructure: telecommunications
- In December 2013 Perseus Telecom, a leading provider of high speed global connectivity, High Precision Time and market-to-market networks announced a new wireless service would connect the London Based financial markets of NYSE, Euronext, BATS Chi-X, London Stock Exchange, London Metal Exchange, iCap EBS and Thomson Reuters.
- Email, video conferencing and cloud based storage allows firms, TNCs and others collaborative processes with staff and contacts from all around the world
- Fed-ex, DHL and others fly to major cities, delivering urgent documents and goods.
London as a case study
Think back to the criteria…
Connectivity… (The city as a node within various types of networks)
- All of London’s airport terminals see more than 100,000 flights per month
Flight Data: Heathrow
- Transport hub to many other destinations including Europe and the rest of the world
Locate London on the Global Connectivity Rating scale generated by Australian demographer Bernard Salt. How were these results generated?
Financial Prominence
- Financial and Business services: home to 33% of European HQs of Global Fortune 500.
- Over 40% of the world’s foreign equities are traded here, more than New York.
- Over 30% of the world’s currency exchanges take place here, more than New York and Tokyo combined.
- While New York and Tokyo are reliant mainly on their large American and Asian domestic markets, 80% of our business is international.
Knowledge Excellence
- London’s strengths in science, technology and design offer significant competitive advantage.
- The capital boasts 4,500 world-class researchers and renowned medical and clinical trial centres.
- Over 42 Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) London’s academic excellence is underpinned by the greatest concentration of HEIs in Europe.
Rated by Deloitte as the ‘Soft Power’ Capital
Local Infrastructure
- London tube network: The busiest station Oxford Circus is used by 98 million visitors a year
- Eurostar: Connecting London & Paris… Linking London to Continental Europe
Some London stats to remember
- London’s GDP in excess of 565 billion pounds representing 17% of the UK’s total GDP
- The size of its economy is larger than that of several European nations
- The Port of London handles 48 million tonnes of cargo every year
- Of the total 37 billion pounds of annual export of goods and services, financial and business services account for 15.5 billion pounds
- London trades more US dollars than New York does and more Euros than all other cities in Europe combined
- The service sector employs 3.2 million people in London, which is about 85% of all jobs
- The financial sector alone employs 1.25 million people or about 1 in 3 jobs available
- Manufacturing and construction in contrast, employ half a million residents of greater London, which is about 11 percent of the employable population of Greater London
- London is the centre of operations for almost two out of every three Fortune 500 companies and the European hub for one out of every three large global conglomerates
- The London Stock Exchange is the largest in the world, and accounts for about 32% of all global transactions
- London has the most internationally diverse executive community in the world attracting business leaders from 95 countries
Choose one of London’s industries to research further
Click on this link to go to The London Plan and its Impact on Major Industries
Angus Knowles-Cutler, London office senior partner at Deloitte, said: “London is a global city, arguably the world’s foremost business hub. Part of its power lies in its ability to influence the preference of others by appealing to, attracting and developing leaders. Many of these people were educated or have worked in or around London, attracted by the strength of the city’s diverse businesses, the quality of its universities and the vitality of its creative and digital scene. This flow of skills and leadership talent, and the connections and networks they form is the true lifeblood of a global city.”
Some more reading
GaWC’s research bulletin: London- The Pre-eminent Global City
London: A centre of design and culture
Connectography 