Accordion City in Forbes’ “World’s Most Economically Powerful Cities”

Accordion City has made Forbes’ list of the World’s Most Economically Powerful Cities list, which goes like this:

1. London
2. Hong Kong
3. New York
4. Tokyo
5. Chicago
6. Seoul
7. Paris
8. Los Angeles
9. Shanghai
10. Accordion City (sometimes known as “Toronto”)

Here’s what Forbes has to say:

• GDP (2005): $209 billion
• GDP (2020): $327 billion
• Growth rate: 3%
• MasterCard ranking: 13
• Population (2007): 5,213,000
• Purchasing power (NYC=100): 113.8%

Toronto only narrowly edged out Madrid, Spain; Philadelphia and Mexico City, Mexico, to hang on at No. 10. Toronto is still the economic heart of one of the world’s wealthiest countries, and it’s projected to keep humming through 2020. Along with London, Toronto is the fastest growing G7 financial center.

For more on the Forbes piece, see their article as well as the commentary in the National Post blog Posted Toronto.

This story is doubly interesting, as it comes not long after the Fraser Institute, Canada’s conservative-and-sometimes-crazy think tank, published a report that said that Toronto was a city in decline, citing factors like median income and a decline in management jobs. I might buy the median income argument, but having dealt with management people of all sorts, a decline might be a good thing and would probably boost productivity (looking at their roster, the Institute seems to be largely made of “managers” as opposed to people who do actual work).

This article in Posted Toronto on the report brought out the usual parade of losers who beat that tired “since my family came to Canada, we’ve had nothing but trouble from the immigrants” drum.

Also Worth a Look

In BusinessWeek’s The World’s Best Places to Live 2008, Canadian cities make a strong showing, with Vancouver in 4th place, Toronto in 15th and Ottawa in 19th. Take these with a grain of salt: the highest-ranking cities were Zurich, Vienna and Geneva, which while nice places, could stand a good dose of laxatives; the highest-ranking U.S. city was Honolulu, with came in at 28th place.