In short form, in the age of globalization, the activities of production are scattered on a global basis. She gave a definition that has long struck with me.

Saskia Sassen literally wrote the book on global cities back in 2001 (though her global cities work dates back well over a decade prior to that book). The Bohemian indicator shows the concentration of writers, designers, musicians, actors and other arts-related workers, and is a measure of on area's diversity and cultural amenities.We hear a lot of talk these days about so-called “global cities.” But what is a global city?

For singles: The 'bohemian index' and food/drink dstablishments per capita.

In addition, there were other lifestyle factors that were given extra consideration.

For empty nesters: overall cost-of-living index.

For families: overall cost-of-living index.

For mid-professionals: home ownership affordability (home costs as a percent of household income).

For singles: rental affordability (rental costs as a percent of household income).

Empty Nesters: Married, no kids or single 45-64įor specific life-stage groups, these cost factors were weighted more heavily:.

Families: Married, with kids, through 64.

Mid-Professionals: Married, no kids, or single, 30-44.

A fourth factor included here is economic growth. This boils down to presence of high-tech workers and businesses, the talent level of the workforce and the tolerance for all types of people.

Here is a breakdown of how the Kiplinger/Richard Florida 25 Best Cities were selected:Īll cities were judged of the strength of their '3T's.' These are technology, talent and tolerance. Kevin Stolarick, from Carnegie Mellon University, Catalytix and the Richard Florida Creativity Group, developed and performed the quantitative analysis that led to our selections. Finally, metro areas of varying sizes are recommended for each life stage. The bohemian indicator shows the concentration of writers, designers, musicians, actors and other arts-related personnel, and is a comparative measure of an area's diversity and cultural amenities (100 represents the national average in our index, so a higher or lower indicator shows a higher/lower concentration).

Criteria used to rank global cities