Where's best: The Knight Frank Global Cities Index
Which cities are the best for UHNWIs to live, invest and do business in? Our City Wealth Index provides the definitive guide for 2020
2 minutes to read
For the 2020 edition of The Wealth Report, we have looked at 100 cities across the globe, assessing them against a number of different metrics that demonstrate each city’s global appeal as a place to invest, live and spend time. Each year, New York and London battle it out for top spot – unsurprising as, according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network's city classification, they are the only two cities with “Alpha++” status.
Our latest results show New York recapturing the top spot from its old rival, pushing London back into second place based on metrics across our three main categories – wealth, investment and lifestyle. Paris, Hong Kong and Los Angeles round out the top five cities.
In the top 20, North America dominates with eight cities, followed by Asia and Europe both with five. From Russia, Moscow is a new entry while Sydney ensures an Australian presence.
Wealth
Wealth looks at the number of both HNWIs and UHNWIs in each city, using our new Wealth Sizing Model for the first time. New York has the highest number of UHNWIs, followed by Paris. Tokyo is home to the most HNWIs, followed by New York. Los Angeles sits in third place for both categories.
Investment
Overall, New York leads this ranking followed by London. Each year we assess the level and diversity of private investment in real estate in each city. For volumes alone, Beijing comes out top with over US$42 billion. However, for diversity of investors – measured by the number of nationalities investing – London leads.
In addition, this year we wanted to assess the power of our cities in terms of the number of top global firms headquartered there. By this measure Tokyo leads, with the highest number of Forbes 2000 firms.
Lifestyle
The lifestyle ranking is based on those key luxury measures that encourage individuals to visit and reside in each city. These include luxury hotels and restaurants, quality and number of top universities and, for the first time, levels of connectivity.
To measure connectivity we looked at the number of destinations – both national and international – served by each city’s main airports. European cities dominate, with London (392) the most connected, followed by Paris (320) and Frankfurt (302). In each case, a significant proportion of those connections are international.
Overall, London takes the top spot in this category, followed closely by Paris.
