An aggregating approach to ranking cities for knowledge-based development

Abstract

The publication and acceptance of international city ranking indices have been growing over the last decade with the prevalence of globalisation and urbanisation in this knowledge economy. Given the variety of benchmarks, indices and reports published to date, there is limited study on a comprehensive city index that would consolidate a wide-range of indicators for broad international audiences. This paper presents CITYCARD, an aggregating index, to comprehensively measure, score and rank 105 cities worldwide using a collection of 21 global indices arranged in five broad categories: global cities, nice cities, knowledge cities, intelligent cities and creative cities. This study on city ranking may prove to be useful for practitioners and decision makers in the planning and economic development fields.