London ranked 'world's most influential city'

When compared with the super cities of South America and China, London’s population is relatively insignificant – however the city still clutches onto its former imperial clout of Empire’s past as it out-ranks all other global cities in Forbes latest league table.

London’s influential prowess seems to stem from its appealing investment culture, its central trading location between Asia, the Eurozone and America, as well as its booming tech industry.

The list, complied by Joel Kotkin, Professor of Urban Studies at Chapman University in California, was calculated with eight factors: the amount of foreign direct investment they have attracted; the concentration of corporate headquarters; how many particular business niches they dominate; air connectivity (ease of travel to other global cities); strength of producer services; financial services; technology and media power; and racial diversity.

“Inertia and smart use of it is a key theme that emerged in our evaluation of the top global cities. No city better exemplifies this than London, which after more than a century of imperial decline still ranks No. 1 in our survey.

“Its location outside the United States and the eurozone keeps it away from unfriendly regulators.

“Compared to New York, it is also time-zone advantaged for doing business in Asia, and has the second best global air connections of any city after Dubai, with nonstop flights at least three times a week to 89% of global cities outside of its home region of Europe,” he explains.

“London has become Europe’s top technology startup center, according to the Startup Genome project. The city has upward of 3,000 tech startup sas well as Google’s largest office outside Silicon Valley.”