When the first edition of Cities of Opportunity was developed, we made a decision to rank cities only in their 10 indicator categories and to forego showing overall rankings to avoid the misperception of a contest. That risk seemed especially significant in 2007, when the media cast New York and London in a death match for global capital market kingship.
In hindsight, the New York versus London tug of war seems a figment of the about-to-burst bubble, a comparison that deserved headline attention only through the looking glass of irrational exuberance. And a curious reader, then and now, might be expected to ask, quite commonsensically, ‘who does win?’
This fourth edition of Cities of Opportunity for the first time shows an overall ranking. But which city wins is far from our message or motivation. If anything, we honor the admonition of Walt Whitman, a 19th century editor of The Brooklyn Eagle: “Be curious, not judgmental.”
