Global Rankings

FIGURE

A VIEW AT OUR METROPOLITAN WORLD

EDITED BY RAFAEL LUNA DONGWOO YIM

Work in progress by FIGUREGROUND 239 Causeway Street, Suite G2 Boston, MA 02114 To submit an essay please email info@figureground.info www.figureground.info Š 2011 FIGUREGROUND - All Rights Reserved No part of this booklet may used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from FIGUREGROUND, except in context of reviews.

TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION 1

FIGURE

4 10 12 16 18 22

Global Ranking Analysis of Cities New Ranking Ranking Flow World Mapping The Metropolis

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GLOBAL RANKING

GLOBAL RANKING 7 World Surveys

INTRODUCTION The purpose of this booklet is to publicly show the progress that we are making on our research, encouraging participation from anyone around the world. Please feel free to browse, and send us comments, links, essay, or thoughts on the matter.

The research began at the end of 2010, our data reflects this date. For this first section we were interested in world ranking systems, and we found several surveys, but we selected 7 surveys that ranked cities numerically. This way it would be easier to establish a base line for comparison.

These surveys have different criteria for ranking

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cities, which is reflected on their lists of cities. Each of teh surveys show an array of different cities, in different positions. By cross-referencing these surveys, we could create a ranking of our own that reflected the merger of all the different aspects taken into consideration by each individual survey. The seven surveys used by us are: Global City Index, Global Power City Index, World City Survey, Global Financial Centres, World’s Most Economically Powerful Cities, Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index, and the Number of Millionaires.

We have marked each ranking survey with a symbol, which will be repeated throughout the research.

To read more about some of these ranking please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

Global City Index Global Power City Index World City Survey Global Financial Centres World’s Most Economically Powerful Cities Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index Number of Millionaires FIGUREGROUND - Global Ranking

GLOBAL CITIES INDEX

1 New York City 2 London 3 Tokyo 4 Paris 5 Hong Kong 6 Chicago 7 Los Angeles 8 Singapore 9 Sydney 10 Seoul 11 Brussels 12 San Francisco 13 Washington, D.C. 14 Toronto 15 Beijing 16 Berlin 17 Madrid 18 Vienna 19 Boston 20 Frankfurt am Main 20 Shanghai 22 Buenos Aires 23 Stockholm 24 Zurich 25 Moscow 26 Barcelona 27 Dubai 28 Rome 29 Amsterdam 30 Mexico City

GLOBAL RANKING

GLOBAL POWER CITY INDEX

WORLD CITY SURVEY

1 New York City 2 London 3 Paris 4 Tokyo 5 Singapore 6 Berlin 7 Vienna 8 Amsterdam 9 Zurich 10 Hong Kong 11 Madrid 12 Seoul 13 Los Angeles 14 Sydney 15 Toronto 16 Frankfurt am Main 17 Copenhagen 18 Brussels 19 Geneva 20 Boston

1 New York 2 London 3 Paris 4 Tokyo 5 Los Angeles 6 Brussels 7 Singapore 8 Berlin 9 Beijing 10 Toronto 11 Chicago 12 Washington, D.C. 13 Seoul 14 Hong Kong 15 Frankfurt 16 Sydney 17 San Francisco 18 Bangkok 19 Shanghai 20 Zurich

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GLOBAL FINANCIAL CENTRES INDEX

WORLD’S MOST ECONOMICALLY POWERFUL CITIES

1 London 2 New York 3 Hong Kong 4 Singapore 5 Tokyo 6 Shanghai 7 Chicago 8 Zurich 9 Geneva 10 Sydney

1 London 2 Hong Kong 3 New York City 4 Tokyo 5 Chicago 6 Seoul 7 Paris 8 Los Angeles 9 Shanghai 10 Toronto

FIGUREGROUND - Global Ranking

GLOBAL RANKING

WORLDWIDE CENTRES OF COMMERCE INDEX

NUMBER OF MILLIONAIRES

1 London 2 New York 3 Tokyo 4 Singapore 5 Chicago 6 Hong Kong 7 Paris 8 Frankfurt 9 Seoul 10 Amsterdam

1 New York City 2 London 3 Moscow 4 Hong Kong 5 Los Angeles 6 Dallas 7 Istanbul 8 San Francisco 9 Chicago Mumbai Sao Paulo Tokyo 10

(US $)

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GLOBAL RANKING

ANALYSIS OF CITIES COMPARISON OF SURVEYS We made a list of all the cities that appeared in general surveys that we found. These cities were separated by continent, and were marked when they appeared in one of the 7 surveys selected.

This process is to narrow down the selection of cities, into the ones that can be categorized numerically. The seven surveys are represented by their symbol. When a city appears in a survey, the symbol of the survey is fille din black. Cities that appear in the top 3 spots are filled with red.

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ASIA

AMERICAS

Bangalore

Belo Horizonte

Bangkok

Bogota

Beijing

Boston

Chennai

Buenos Aires

Colombo

Calgary

Dubai

Charlotte

Ho Chi Minh City

Chicago

Hong Kong

Dallas

Islamabad

Lima

Jakarta

Los Angeles

Karachi

Mexico City

Kolkata

Montreal

Kuala Lumpur

New York

Metro Manila

Panama City

Mumbai

Rio de Janeiro

New Delhi

San Francisco

Osaka

Santiago

Shanghai

Sao Paulo

Shenzhen

Toronto

Singapore

Vancouver

Seoul

Washington DC

Taipei Tokyo

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GLOBAL RANKING

EUROPE

AFRICA

Amsterdam

Cairo

Athens

Johannesburg

Barcelona

Lagos

Berlin Brussels Budapest Copenhagen Dublin Edinburgh

OCEANIA Auckland Melbourne Sydney Wellington

Frankfurt am Main Geneva Helsinki Istanbul Lisbon London Madrid Milan Moscow Oslo Paris Prague Rome Stockholm Vienna Warsaw Zurich 13

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DEVELOPING A NEW RANKING After all cities have been marked accodring to their surveys, we grouped cities by the amount of times that they had appeared on a survey. New York, London, Tokyo, and Hong Kong appeared in al 7 surveys, so they form the first group of top cities. Chicago was the only city to appear on 6 surveys so it stands alone in the second group.

This process continuos till we separated 7 groups.

Within each group, we calculated which city appeared the most on at the top of each survey. New York appeared in all 7 surveys as a top city, as well as London, but New York appeared more times as a number 1 city, which take the number one spot in our survey. This second process could only be accomplished till the fith group. Group 6 and 7 couldn’t be ranked numerically, since they only appeared once or twice amongst the 7 surveys.

This didn’t provide sufficient data to compare.

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GLOBAL RANKING

1. NEW YORK 2. LONDON 3. TOKYO 4. HONG KONG 5. CHICAGO 6. PARIS 7. SINGAPORE 8. LOS ANGELES 9. SEOUL 10. SHANGHAI 11. TORONTO 12. SYDNEY 13. FRANKFURT 14. ZURICH

15. Brussels 16. Berlin 17. San Francisco 18. Amsterdam Beijing Boston Geneva Madrid Moscow Vienna Washington DC

Global City Index Global Power City Index World City Survey Global Financial Centres World’s Most Economically Powerful Cities Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index Number of Millionaires

Bangkok Barcelona Buenos Aires Copenhagen Dallas Dubai Istanbul Mexico City Mumbai Rome Sao Paulo Stockholm 15

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RANKING FLOW DIAGRAM FOR CROSS-REFERENCE OF RANKING

1 New York City 2 London 3 Tokyo 4 Paris 5 Hong Kong 6 Chicago 7 Los Angeles 8 Singapore 9 Sydney 10 Seoul 11 Brussels 12 San Francisco 13 Washington, D.C. 14 Toronto 15 Beijing 16 Berlin 17 Madrid 18 Vienna 19 Boston 20 Frankfurt am Main 20 Shanghai 22 Buenos Aires 23 Stockholm 24 Zurich 25 Moscow 26 Barcelona 27 Dubai 28 Rome 29 Amsterdam 30 Mexico City

FIGUREGROUND - Global Ranking

1 New York City 2 London 3 Paris 4 Tokyo 5 Singapore 6 Berlin 7 Vienna 8 Amsterdam 9 Zurich 10 Hong Kong 11 Madrid 12 Seoul 13 Los Angeles 14 Sydney 15 Toronto 16 Frankfurt am Main 17 Copenhagen 18 Brussels 19 Geneva 20 Boston

1 New York 2 London 3 Paris 4 Tokyo 5 Los Angeles 6 Brussels 7 Singapore 8 Berlin 9 Beijing 10 Toronto 11 Chicago 12 Washington, D.C. 13 Seoul 14 Hong Kong 15 Frankfurt 16 Sydney 17 San Francisco 18 Bangkok 19 Shanghai 20 Zurich

1 London 2 New York 3 Hong Kong 4 Singapore 5 Tokyo 6 Shanghai 7 Chicago 8 Zurich 9 Geneva 10 Sydney

1 Lon 2 Hon 3 New 4 Tok 5 Chi 6 Seo 7 Par 8 Los 9 Sha 10 To

ndon ng Kong w York City kyo icago oul ris s Angeles anghai oronto

GLOBAL RANKING

RANKING FLOW DIAGRAM We color coded each group of cities to make it easier to visuallize the flow of movement of each city as they change position in each survey.

1 London 2 New York 3 Tokyo 4 Singapore 5 Chicago 6 Hong Kong 7 Paris 8 Frankfurt 9 Seoul 10 Amsterdam

1 New York City 2 London 3 Moscow 4 Hong Kong 5 Los Angeles 6 Dallas 7 Istambul 8 San Francisco 9 Chicago Mumbai Sao Paulo Tokyo

1. NEW YORK 2. LONDON 3. TOKYO 4. HONG KONG 5. CHICAGO 6. PARIS 7. SINGAPORE 8. LOS ANGELES 9. SEOUL 10. SHANGHAI 11. TORONTO 12. SYDNEY 13. FRANKFURT 14. ZURICH

15. Brussels 16. Berlin 17. San Francisco 18. Amsterdam Washington DC Boston Madrid Vienna Geneva Moscow Beijing Copenhagen Stockholm Istanbul Barcelona Rome Mumbai Bangkok Dubai Buenos Aires Sao Paulo Mexico City Dallas

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GLOBAL RANKING

WORLD MAPPING POPULATION/ WORLD’S INFLUENTIAL CITIES

WORLD DIAGRAMS The following diagrams represent the world population distribution on the left, and the world’s most influential cities on the right.

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ASIA

60% AFRICA

15%

OCEANIA 00.5%

NORTH AMERICA 6.5%

EUROPE

11%

SOUTH AMERICA

LIVE IN CITIES

10% (1900) 50% (2007) 75% (2050)

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

20

7%

GLOBAL RANKING Oceania

ASIA (West/South)

Africa

SYDNEY

MUMBAI NEW DEHLI BANGALORE CHENNAI KARACHI ISLAMABAD DUBAI

JOHANNESBURG CAIRO LAGOS

MELBOURNE AUKLAND WELLINGTON

Asia (East)

TOKYO OSAKA

SEOUL BEIJING

SHANGHAI TAIPEI

HONG KONG MANILA HO CHI MINH CITY BANGKOK KUALA LUMPUR

SINGAPOUR JAKARTA

Europe

LONDON PARIS LISBON

MADRID

BARCELONA DUBLIN EDINBURGH

AMSTERDAM BRUSSELS

Americas

FRANKFURT ZURICH

NEW YORK

MILAN ROME ATHENS

CHICAGO

LOS ANGELES SAN FRANCISCO WASHINGTON DC BOSTON CHARLOTTE

TORONTO

MONTREAL MEXICO CITY PANAMA CITY BOGOTA CARACAS BELO HORIZONTE RIO DE JANEIRO SAO PAULO SANTIAGO BUENOS AIRES

GENEVA

BERLIN PRAGUE

VIENNA

BUDAPEST WARSAW COPENHAGEN OSLO HELSINKI STOCKHOLM ISTAMBUL

MOSCOW

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GLOBAL RANKING

THE METROPOLIS ESSAY BY RAFAEL LUNA

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THE METROPOLIS RAFAEL LUNA

In “The Culture of Congestion”, Rem Koolhaas defines the metropolis as a condition of an explosive growth in technology with a massive increase in population in a limited space. This condition refers to the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, where rapid industrialization took place producing an influx of migrations due to the increase in job opportunities. The merging population created a new social dynamic, with new possibilities in architecture that were explored as the birth of metropolitan architecture.

Karl Marx describes this new social condition as a new stratification of social classes; the ruling class and the working class, defined as the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. New social classes generated an unbalanced condition, where property and power were concentrated in the hands of few.

With the growth of industry within the city, the housing for the proletariat became inadequate.

John Ruskin describes a scene from one of his experiences driving through the country side of England, where he couldn’t go past one hundred yards without seeing a furnace or a mill. It seemed that urbanity had spread as an industrial field. It could be conceived that the Metropolis and the urban setting would just turn into vast districts of fabrication and production. This would imply that architecture would cease to be, since the urban setting would just be industry. Ruskin stated that design couldn’t be generated from this condition.

Following with the idea of impossibility of art and 24

design, William Morris talked about the death of both intellectual art and decorative art. They had been lost both to the industry. “Art comes from the joy of labor,” William Morris. But, labor had been turned into production and reproduction.

Walter Benjamin suggested that the reproduction vanishes traces of tradition.

This is reflected in architecture by Karel Teige, who reflects on the social conditions of the proletariat, their work life of reproduction, and the lack of housing for them. He suggests that an “International Modern Architecture” should tackle the problems of the minimum dwelling to solve social implications of collective housing. Spaces would no longer be classified as bedroom, kitchen, living room, but they would reflect the living and working conditions of the time. A space might consist of areas for sleeping, eating, and resting without implying a classification or assigned program.

Georg Simmel describes the social implications of the rapid industry and minimum dwelling as one of individuality. There was a jump in scale form the slow moving rural condition to the rapid explosive Metropolis. The individual became reserved and respected individuality as a mode of existing in the metropolis. The rapid pace generated two things, the reserved individual that didn’t seek interaction, and the second, constant stimulations for the senses. The constant stimulation generated the “Blasé-attitude”, which was a process achieved after constant metropolitan stimulation.

“The blasé attitude results first from the rapidly changing and closely compressed contrasting stimulations of the nerves. From this, the enhancement of metropolitan intellectuality, also, seems originally to stem. Therefore, stupid people who are not intellectually alive in the first place usually are not exactly blasé. A life in boundless pursuit of pleasure makes one blasé because it agitates the nerves to their strongest reactivity for such a long time that they finally cease to react at all. In the same way, through the rapidity and contradictoriness of their changes, more harmless impressions force such violent responses, tearing the nerves so brutally hither and thither that their last reserves of strength are spent; and if one remains in the same milieu they have no time to gather new

strength. An incapacity thus emerges to react to new sensations with the appropriate energy. This constitutes that blasé attitude which, in fact, every metropolitan child shows when compared with children of quieter and less changeable milieus.”

Simmel In 1977 Rem Koolhaas revisited all this notions and envisioned the potential possibilities that the metropolis generated for architecture. The industry generated new technologies that created new social possibilities. He explains this effect using Connie Island as an example. After the Brooklyn Bridge was opened, the once virgin island received up to a million people in a good day. The first change was the “cow”. There wasn’t enough land to have real cows to produce enough milk to quench the thirst of the visitors, so the cow machine was invented, which artificially generated more milk. Same with horses, and horseback riding as a pastime. This was replaced by the ‘steeple chase’ in a mechanical race track. The invention of electricity allowed for night bathing, since the shoreline wasn’t long enough to accommodate all the visitors during the day. To counteract the Blasé-attitude and the lonely individual, “Barrels of Love” and the “Tunnel of Love” were created. The Metropolis could be generated by artificiality of technology and ingenuity of the mind.

More importantly, the advances in technology generated new architecture spaces. Otis invented the safety-catch on elevators, which allowed for the skyscraper to be generated. this allowed for singular spaces, non-specific to the building at different levels. The 100-story building could have 1/3 commercial, 1/3 business, 1/3 residential, with urban plazas at every 20th level. A new social mixing and interaction is possible. New programs that have never been thought off could be conceived, “Eating oysters, naked, with gloves, on the 9th floor.” Koolhass.

GLOBAL RANKING

ronment is rapidly responding to these conditions by means of new typologies that reflect a new way of life.

Cities like Tokyo have a tradition of growing new typologies. In the book “Made in Tokyo”, some examples of these typologies have been catalogued in order to express the non-architectural condition of hybridity that occurs in their buildings. These “no-good” buildings, reflect the nature of the city and how new spaces are derived of the constant urbanity. ex. Highways house retail spaces inder their structure. Every single pocket space is utilized to its maximum potential in order to maintain an urban standard for the city.

So where is the Metropolis moving on as we rapidly advance in technology, and urbanity continues to take over? Areas like Bos-Wash, Benelux, Blue Banana exist where strips of constant construction makes it difficult to identify where the Metropolis ends and a “Megalopolis” begins. Our built envi25

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GLOBAL RANKING

MORE TO COME Please keep on checking in for more updates.

OPEN CALL FOR ESSAYS If you would like to participate, contribute, or submit essays, please email us at info@figurground.info FIGUREGROUND 239 Causeway Street, Suite G2 Boston, MA 02114 Š 2011 FIGUREGROUND - All Rights Reserved 27