The Cities of Opportunity Index is a ranking focuses on “well-balanced” cities. The ranking is published by PwC and conducted on the basis of different factors, among which are quality of like, sustainability, technology, education and many more. This year, it includes 30 cities and Dubai is one of them.
Together with Rio de Janeiro, Jakarta and Nairobi, Dubai makes a comeback on the Cities of Opportunity list. This year, the city has replaced Abu Dhabi as the commercial and financial center of the Middle East. As a result, it managed to climb to the 16th spot on the Cities of Opportunity Index.
Dubai’s performance in some particular categories included in the index is more than impressive. For instance, the city is 8th in the world on the list of City getaways. Also, it ranks 10th in Transportation and infrastructure and 12th in Demographics and livability.
Despite that, the Dubai’s performance is not equally impressive across all categories. As a start, Dubai was last in Sustainability and natural environment. In addition to that, its score in innovation and technology readiness was also unsatisfactory and it was outside the top 10.
Nevertheless, Dubai is the only city from the Middle East region that made it to PwC’s “Cities of Opportunity” list. In addition, compared to the other newcomers on the ranking that have a low score, Dubai is the only one with a medium result.
London is the city that tops the ranking this year. In fact, the capital of the United Kingdom lands the first spot of the Cities of Opportunity Index for the very first time. Still, New York follows it closely behind. The two cities are less than 1% away from each others. Singapore comes third this year, which means that it has climbed with four positions compared to the 2013 ranking.
All in all, the top 10 has not undergone some dramatic changes over the last one year. There is only one new city among the best 10 in 2014 and that is Sydney. Thanks to its high performance in categories like natural environment, quality of life and sustainability.
Top 10 Cities of Opportunity in 2014:
- London
- New York
- Singapore
- Toronto
- San Francisco
- Paris
- Stockholm
- Hong Kong
- Sydney
- Chicago
- 16. Dubai
The report’s biggest finding is that the size of the cities is actually irrelevant to their performance on the index. From PwC state that the list includes both large and smaller-sized cities. In fact, some of the smallest cities on the list this year have managed to be among the top 10 in the category Economic clout which is traditionally associated more with larger cities.
