The 30 Fastest Cities to Work, Live and Play
What better source than Fast Company magazine to list the fastest cities in 2007. Here’s their Fast Cities 2007, with category, city, population and primary reason it’s fast in its respective category:
Creative Class Meccas
Shanghai, China: 14.5M; investment
New York: 18.8M; income per capita
San Francisco Bay Area: 4.2M; technology
Buenos Aires, Argentina: 12.6M; university
Global Villages
Toronto, Canada: 5.1M; diversity/immigration
Johannesburg, South Africa: 3.3M; immigration
Berlin, Germany: 3.4M; immigration
R&D Clusters
Fort Collins, CO: 276K, patents
Seoul, Korea: 9.6M, patents
Raleigh-Durham, NC: 1.6M, college grads
Green Leaders
Chicago, IL: 9.5M, more green roofs than all other cities combined
Stockholm, Sweden (center image): 1.7M, Europe’s least-polluted major city
Portland, OR: 2.5M; most LEED-certified green buildings
Vancouver, Cananda: 2.1M; ‘World’s Most Livable City’
High-Tech Hot Spots
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: 5.1M; 98% of children complete secondary education
Chandigarh, India: 928K; tech exports quadrupled in five years
Boise, ID: 568K; second highest tech GDP growth in the U.S.
Urban Innovators
Curitiba, Brazil: 2.9M, 45% use progressive bus system
Salt Lake City, UT: 1.1M; youngest urban population in the U.S.
Tallinn, Estonia: 399K; 58% use the internet
Culture Centers
Barcelona, Spain: 4.8M; 1500 design studios, 18 design schools
Miami, FL: 5.5M; Wynwood Art District
Dakar, Senegal: 2.5M; International Fashion Week
Unexpected Oases
Dubai, United Arab Emirates: 1.3M; one-fifth of the world’s cranes are here
Istanbul, Turkey (topmost image): 9.7M; rising credit rating
Sydney, Australia: 4.3M; world’s third favorite city (London, Paris)
Startup Hubs
Austin, TX (lower image): 1.5M, more wi-fi hot spots per capita than anywhere else
Madison, WI: 543K; University of Wisconsin R&D
Tucson, AZ: 946K; top ten in U.S. in job growth and high tech concentration
London: 8.5M, most IPOs in the world
Check out runners-up here.
About The Author
I saw this a few days ago, and I have to say…it’s the most *interesting* city list I’ve seen in a while. Dakar? Tallinn? While those choices could qualify as edgy, I have to seriously question the inclusion of Fort Collins and Boise on any list that includes “fast” in the title.
But perhaps that’s just my prejudice shining through?
Raleigh-Durham may be a fast place to work, but the living and playing parts, let’s get serious. There are about 3- 5 pockets of decent urban living in the Research Triangle, and the rest of the region is a suburban nightmare.
That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I think that the best quality of life-related city list I’ve ever seen came out this past month at Monocle. Why? Because they were unabashedly objective about what cities they included.
Numbers lie so easily…which is why many of these lists wind up sounding so bogus. At any rate, here’s a link to the Monocle list:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/18/arts/rmon1munich.php