European Cities Monitor

The European Cities Monitor 2009 has recently been published, by Cushman and Wakefield, a global real estate firm. They've been doing it since 1990 and it is, essentially, a survey of Europe's major business centres.


This edition contains some well known facts - London, Paris and Frankfurt (in that order) remain at the top of the pile in relation to doing business in Europe. However, there are many more interesting nuggets, such as:

• Birmingham is the biggest mover, up to 14th;
• Rome moved up three places, but only from 25th to 22nd; and
  
• Istanbul moved from 29th to 27th.

Lots of work has been done in this area, both from an academic point of view and from the private sector. However, the same things consistently emerge from research on doing business in cities. Hence, the most important things identified this year are quite familiar:

1. Easy access to markets, customers, clients;
2. Availability of qualified staff;
3. Quality of telecommunications;
4. Transport links with other cities, and internationally...

I could go on, but each of these were all reported as essential by more than 50% of survey respondents. Finally, what about quality of life? The top five cities are as follows:

1. Barcelona
2. Geneva
3. Munich
4. Oslo
5. Madrid

In total, 500 companies were surveyed and 34 cities were included in the analysis.

Euro blogging...

Things have been quieter on the blog front recently because I've been in Lille from 1-5 April and then Leuven from 5-9 April at the Regional Studies Association International Conference 2009. The event brings together key thinkers (not that I think I'm amongst them!) in regional studies from across Europe and the wider world, though it tends to be mostly European. Papers given at the conference were varied and reflect the broad constituency of the field of regional studies itself. So, we find economists mixing with geographers, planners and those who transcend disciplinary boundaries.

Of particular interest for me here was the special session centred on DCLG (a government department in the UK, with responsibilities in England) and the establishment of the new spatial analysis unit, headed by David Wood (economist by training). There were three pleasing aspects about this for me. First, the fact that David Wood and Verity Morgan from DCLG were in attendance in the first place - very good. Second, the fact that there is a new unit within DCLG dedicated to spatial analysis - this is right down my street, as previous posts have shown. Finally, the fact that senior people in the Department are enthusiastic about this kind of work, and particularly work which I had a key role in - I've blogged on it before.

Finally, some visuals on the route from Sheffield to Leuven. I'm taking the Eurostar back...



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