With a score of 23rd globally and a place in the top 25 for the third year running, Dubai has maintained its top spot in the MENA area on Kearney’s Global Cities Index.
The paper claims that in the midst of a shifting globalization profile, well-known growing hubs across the globe—especially in the Middle East—have experienced remarkable improvements in their global city performance, and a new scattered geography of opportunity is beginning to emerge. For example, Abu Dhabi moved up ten places in the world rankings, solidifying its status as a preeminent worldwide hub.
The Global Cities Index (GCI) aims to measure how well a city can draw in, hold on to, and produce international flows of money, talent, and ideas. Human Capital, Information Exchange, Cultural Experience, Political Engagement, and Business Activity are the five main dimensions that cities are evaluated based on.
After several years of decrease, average GCI ratings have stabilized, with notable improvements seen in Middle Eastern and African cities. Specifically, the capital cities of the Gulf countries had significant gains in their overall rankings: Riyadh, Muscat, and Doha saw increases of nine, eight, and seven spots, respectively.
Strong performance in the Human Capital dimension was the main driver of this expansion, as they took advantage of the return to pre-pandemic levels of freedom for international travel to draw in significant numbers of tourists and migrant talent.
Rudolph Lohmeyer, Kearney Partner, National Transformation Institute, commented, “As global trade returns to normalized levels, key cities in the Gulf have emerged as beacons of prosperity, resilience, and opportunity. Their resilient economic performance amid challenging global conditions, combined with a concerted focus on promoting liveability and talent attraction, has drawn ever-greater numbers of expats, making them a remarkable success story in the post-pandemic world. A strong commitment to delivering on ambitious national visions and maintaining a regenerative mindset is paying off.”
The goal of the Global Cities Outlook (GCO) is to identify the cities that are most likely to become globally prominent in the future, whereas the GCI reflects the current status of global city leadership. Additionally, a dispersed landscape of opportunity was emerging here.
The research also revealed that while global hubs in Asia, such as Seoul, Osaka, and Chennai, made notable progress, European cities continued to have a commanding position in the top 30 rankings. Second-tier US metropolises fared especially well, having drawn talent and finance during the tumultuous last few years and establishing themselves as more competitive competitors to more prestigious international cities.
It is anticipated that the convergence of the rapidly developing fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies with the already-occurring trend of remote work will further diminish the importance of physical proximity in fields traditionally associated with large cities, potentially resulting in even more disruption to global cities.
Brenna Buckstaff, Kearney Manager, National Transformations Institute, said, “In this shifting global landscape of distributed opportunity, top-tier global cities cannot take their positions for granted. The traditional hierarchy of leading cities will only become more fluid in the future as opportunities for growth and enhanced productivity become less concentrated during the coming waves of AI-driven innovation. Those cities that adopt a regenerative model – one that moves beyond resilience and thinks proactively – will have a competitive advantage.”
