10 Most Prosperous Cities in the World and Toronto Places 3rd

Being a Toronto call centre, we know the benefits that our city offers and I’ve written many posts which feature how Toronto is perceived globally. I recently wrote about Toronto’s Vital Signs Report and previous to that how our city faired on lists like the Most Livable City, the Most Competitive City, the Best City to Live, the Greenest City and the latest City of Opportunity. Although these lists may seem frivolous, they can have an impact on tourism, immigration and the economy. Today, I’m adding to this list by looking at the most prosperous cities in the world.

This list was based on the State of The World’s Cities 2012/2013 report conducted by the United Nations Human Settlements Program (U.N.-Habitat). This report takes a more holistic approach to prosperity “which is essential for the promotion of a collective well-being and fulfilment of all. This new approach does not only respond to the crises by providing safeguards against new risks, but it also helps cities to steer the world towards economically, socially, politically and environmentally prosperous urban futures. In order to measure present and future progress of cities towards the prosperity path, the Report introduces a new tool – the City Prosperity Index (CPI) – together with a conceptual matrix, the Wheel of Prosperity, both of which are meant to assist decision makers to design clear policy interventions.”

The CPI components include a Productivity Index, Quality of Life Index, Infrastructure Index, Environment Index and Equity Index and they measure “the prosperity factors at work in an individual city, together with a general matrix”. The Wheel of Urban Prosperity suggests areas for policy intervention. The top 10 most prosperous cities in the world according to the CPI are:

1. Vienna, Austria. The highest score Vienna received was in the category of infrastructure with a score of 0.996.
2. New York, United States. The highest of the New York’s scores was 0.994 in infrastructure. What was troubling was that their lowest score was .502 when it came to equity; this was the lowest score in that category of all the top ten countries.
3. Toronto, Canada. Like the first and second place countries on this list Toronto’s top score was in 0.997 in infrastructure. Toronto’s lowest score, much like New York’s was in equity though Toronto scored 0.733 in the category.
4. London, United Kingdom. Once again the highest score for London were in line with the rest of the top four with their highest being 0.997 in infrastructure and the lowest being 0.792 in equity.
5. Stockholm, Sweden. Stockholm’s scores were in line with the top five as in infrastructure they received their highest score (0.995) and in equity their lowest (0.767).
6. Helsinki, Finland. Unsurprisingly, Helsinki had their highest score in the category of infrastructure with 0.997. Where they stand apart from the top five is that their lowest score came in both equity and productivity where they tied with a score of 0.890.
7. Dublin, Ireland. Like most of the cities on this list Dublin’s highest score was 0.996 in infrastructure and lowest score was 0.850 in equity.
8. Oslo, Norway. Oslo’s highest score was 0.997 in infrastructure and their lowest score was 0.870 in productivity.
9. Paris, France. Like the others on the list they received their highest score in infrastructure (0.996) and lowest in equity (0.788).
10. Tokyo, Japan. Continuing the trend of this list Tokyo received their highest score (0.989) in infrastructure and lowest in equity (0.828).

This report advocates a new prosperity for decision-makers to direct their cities towards “– the city of the 21st century – that is a ‘good’, people-centred city, one that is capable of integrating the tangible and more intangible aspects of prosperity, and in the process shedding off the inefficient, unsustainable forms and functionalities of the city of the previous century.“

The only North American cities in the top 10 were New York and Toronto and we would like to congratulate our hometown for coming in 3rd but we need to work on the equality.

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values and advancing the missions of the non-profits we proudly serve.