Changing Landscape
Study offers preview of how pandemic may change cities
Tokyo has maintained its position as the third most attractive city in the world in which to live and work, according to the recently unveiled Global Power City Index 2020, compiled by the Mori Memorial Foundation’s Institute for Urban Strategies and released in December.
The Japanese capital once again comes in behind London and New York, but ahead of Paris and Singapore. The authors of the annual study caution, however, that the inevitable impact of the coronavirus pandemic will not be reflected in the rankings until this year’s figures can be compiled.
“There have not been too many changes in the top-ranked cities this year—although we are seeing some distancing between the top two cities of London and New York from the others—but Tokyo is stagnating somewhat,” said Heizo Takenaka, chairman of the Institute for Urban Strategies’ executive committee.
EARLY GLIMPSE
The 2020 index incorporates a survey designed to give some early indicators of how the pandemic will have affected cities and the people who inhabit them, Takenaka said at a press event held on December 8 to release the report. The ongoing health crisis is likely to impact areas of the survey such as workplace flexibility, as well as the need for greater internet access and higher speeds, as more people work from home or remotely.
The study was first published in 2008 and now ranks 48 major cities around the world in terms of magnetism—their power to attract creative individuals and enterprises. Cities are rated according to 70 indicators across six functions:
Economy
Research and development
Cultural interaction
Livability
Environment
Accessibility
The authors fine-tune the indicators and their data-collection methods each year to better reflect the changing conditions that impact global cities. In 2020, among the indicators added to better reflect the needs of residents are:
Air quality
Ease of mobility by taxi or bicycle
Number of arrivals and departures at the airport
Seventeen of the 48 cities examined this year are in Europe, eight are in North America, and 13 are in Asia. Since the first report was issued, the same five cities have occupied the top positions, albeit in different orders.
HOLDING STRONG
Despite ongoing concerns over the impact of Britain’s imminent departure from the European Union, London maintained its overall top position for a ninth consecutive year, placing in the top 10 for all categories except the environment.
The authors identified a sharp improvement in the British capital’s accessibility ranking, where it overtook Paris to claim the top spot, while the city retained a clear lead in the area of cultural interaction. On the downside, London’s economy ranking fell for a second year as a consequence of a drop in the growth rate of its gross domestic product.
New York once again dominated the economy category, with improved scores in areas of total employment and employees in business support services. It also earned the highest ratings in the variety of workplace options section.
The Big Apple held on to its top ranking in research and development as well as cultural interaction, although a relatively poor score for workstyle flexibility damaged its standing in the livability rankings, the city’s weakest area.
Tokyo rounded out the top three, with the report pointing to consistent strengths in all areas. The metropolis also managed to lift its score in terms of the environment and accessibility.
Despite Tokyo hanging on to fourth place in the economy rankings, the gap with Singapore, which placed fifth in the category, has narrowed. Livability was the sole area where Tokyo’s rankings fell, primarily due to a decline in scores for workstyle flexibility.
The city has risen in the rankings for cultural interaction since it was selected in 2013 as the host of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. That ranking has not been affected by the one-year delay resulting from the pandemic, but the report points out that there is still room for improvement in terms of nightlife options and the number of luxury hotel rooms.
With Paris fourth and Singapore fifth in the overall rankings, the top 10 was rounded out by Amsterdam, Berlin, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Shanghai—which made the largest overall jump, soaring from 30th in the previous year.
COVID IMPACT
With authorities around the world having been forced to introduce lockdowns, travel bans, and other restrictions on movement, the coronavirus has, inevitably, had a significant effect on the economic networks and lifestyles of city residents. And while the impact of the pandemic was visible in a number of indicators, such as workstyle flexibility, the true scale of change is not yet apparent, the authors warned.
Nevertheless, the researchers did issue a separate questionnaire in October and November. About 1,000 residents of the report’s top five cities were polled in an effort to obtain some early understanding of the impact of the health crisis on urban lifestyles and how that might affect the competition.
About 90 percent of those who took part said they had been influenced by the pandemic to some degree, indicating that the attractiveness of cities will be impacted in the 2021 report.
Roughly 40 percent of respondents said they want to work from home, and another 40 percent would like to work at the office, after the pandemic has subsided. This result indicates there is a need to reevaluate the workspaces of the new normal, and underlines the demand for diversified options.
The questionnaire also asks people whether they might relocate as a result of the pandemic and, if so, to where they might choose to move. Some 20 percent of Tokyo residents and 40 percent of New Yorkers said they would consider moving, with responses ranging from somewhere closer to the city center to the suburbs or even a different city entirely.
People in Tokyo and London favored the suburbs, while New Yorkers and residents of Singapore were in favor of moving closer to a city center.
The implications, the report concludes, are that—thanks to workstyles that permit people to conduct business no matter their location—a new generation has the freedom to relocate to cities anywhere in the world that they find attractive. This means that cities must adapt to ensure they meet the needs and ambitions of a more mobile workforce.
LOCAL CHALLENGES
Mobility will be of particular concern to Tokyo, which came in 13th globally for variety of workplace options. The number of coworking facilities in the city is virtually the same as in Madrid, but lags far behind Barcelona, Los Angeles, and regional rivals Singapore and Hong Kong.
Even more worryingly, Tokyo ranked 41st in terms of workstyle flexibility, which falls under the study’s livability function. This dragged it down to 12th overall in this section of the study. The user-friendly cities of Amsterdam, Madrid, Berlin, Paris, and Barcelona topped the rankings for livability, offering some hints as to the measures that Tokyo should adopt to make the city more appealing to its residents and workers.
Surprisingly, Japan was also relatively unimpressive in terms of fixed broadband speeds, being left behind by Madrid, Paris, and even Bangkok.
Yet another area of concern for companies and organizations that have operations in Tokyo is the city’s poor showing in terms of skilled human resources, including people with English language skills.
The report’s findings were presented by Hiroo Ichikawa, executive director of The Mori Memorial Foundation and professor emeritus at Meiji University, who singled out this failing as being significant to the city’s overall ranking.
“For availability of skilled human resources, Tokyo ranks somewhat low at 38, and this fall was due to worse scores in English ability,” he said. “So compared with the top cities, like New York, Hong Kong and Singapore, Tokyo is somewhat low.”
ROAD AHEAD
In a forward-looking analysis of how the coronavirus might shape this year’s findings and final report, Michael Batty, a professor at University College London, said the pandemic may very well reverse the centuries-long trend of people and businesses centralizing themselves in urban areas.
Social distancing is “having an enormous impact on the way we behave in cities, through altered working, living, and mobility styles,” he said.
In a series of predictions, Batty suggests an increased shift away from motorized transportation over shorter distances to walking and cycling, along with greater use of individual passenger transportation, meaning a car rather than public buses, trains, and subway.
With more people working from home, there would be a reconfiguration of both the home and the traditional office space. This, in turn, would reduce the need for public transportation and, he suggests, cut our consumption of fast food, which would have clear public health benefits.
“Over the medium term, there may well be shifts in where people live and work and seek entertainment,” he said. “Over the longer term, cities may well decentralize, and their biggest centers may become higher profile and more compact, hosting human interaction and business transactions that need not be conducted face-to-face as frequently as in the past.”
THE JOURNAL
JANUARY 2021
Vol. 58 Issue 1
A flagship publication of The American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ), The ACCJ Journal is a business magazine with a 58-year history.
Christopher Bryan Jones, Publisher & Editor
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