London and New York are globally two of the most desirable megacities to live in, says a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) released on March 7, 2023.
According to the report titled Cities of Choice, these two cities performed well in terms of economic opportunities, quality of life, social capital, and interactions with authorities. They, however, scored lower on speed of change, signaling their top spots could be vulnerable in the coming years.
In developing the report, BCG drew on surveys of more than 50,000 people in 81 cities around the world. Participants’ survey responses were assessed using more than 150 economic, social, and political metrics and indicators across five dimensions, including economic opportunities and quality of life, and 26 subdimensions, such as safety, housing, and the ability to influence events.
Based on the population, the 81 sample cities have been further divided in 14 megacities with over 10 million population, 31 cruiser weighters with over 3 million population, 28 middleweight with less than 3 million population and developing cities (with a below-average income).
In the developing cities segment with a sample size of 8 cities, India’s Silicon Valley topped the chart, scoring above its peers Mumbai (2nd) and Delhi (3rd). Ho Chi Minh City (4th), Tashkent (5th), Cairo (6th), Nairobi (7th) and Lagos (8th) were the other developing cities that made it to the list.
“These cities, characterised by their high growth rate and rapid urbanisation, can be distinctly identified for their high speed of change but lower quality of life,” said the report.
For cities with an urban population of more than 3 million people, Washington DC, Singapore and San Francisco emerged as the group’s leaders.
“While cruiser weight cities have higher scores in the interactions-with-authorities dimension, they did not fare as well in dimensions such as social capital and speed of change,” says the report.
As a group, middleweight cities—defined as medium-sized cities with an urban population of less than 3 million people—performed the best, with 18 of the 28 cities receiving overall scores above-the-median score. Copenhagen, Vienna and Amsterdam took the top three spots in this category. These cities stand out for receiving high quality-of-life scores.
