By Renard Teipelke
There is probably no index missing in the profession (and obsession) of ranking cities. One index that was recently mentioned in the UN-Habitat State of the World Cities Report 2012/2013 is the Innovation Cities Index.
2thinknow, the company behind this index, advertises it as the “world’s largest city classification and ranking with 331 benchmark cities classified”. Cities are ranked globally and per region and are classified as “nexus”, “hub”, “node”, “influencer”, or “upstart” – basically ascribing to cities a higher to lower degree of importance/relevance with regard to ‘innovation’; with “nexus” cities (such as Boston, Vienna, Munich, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, or Seoul) at the top as being the crucial centers for multiple social and economic innovation sectors, and “upstart” cities (such as Jakarta, Kolkata, Johannesburg, Karachi, Manama, or Lima) at the bottom as having potentially some innovative sectors in the future.
