Indian cities rank low in global urban competitiveness league

NEW DELHI: An international team of researchers has just released a Global Urban Competitiveness Report, which takes stock of 500 cities around the world. New York has been found to be the most competitive city in the world, followed, in that order, by London, Tokyo, Paris and Washington, DC.

But what's shocking is that although cities across the world have been ranked according to seven parameters of competitiveness, such as enterprise competitiveness, industrial structure, human resources, business environment, living environment and so on, no Indian city features in any of the seven corresponding top 20 lists, with a solitary exception: Mumbai comes in at number 15 on industrial structure.

Cities are the catalysts of growth and economic development. The poor representation of Indian cities belies India's status as a rising economic power. This should be an opportunity to look at what is wrong with our cities. Do they measure up to the other major cities' industries, people, multinational corporations, as well as living, social and business environments? Perhaps not at all.

Thanks: ET