Beijing Crummy for Residents, But Great for Visitors, Managers and Artists, According to New City Ranking

It's like a A Tale of Two Cities, with some aspects prosperous, and others nothing short of disastrous.

First the good news: Beijing cracked the top five in economy and the top 10 in culture on this year's Global Power City Index (more of which can be seen here via businesswire.com).

The research institute behind the ranking, Mori Memorial Foundation’s Institute for Urban Strategies, listed China's capital as number four on its economy category, behind New York, London and Tokyo (the latter of which took the top spot). Beijing's showing on the cultural interaction section was not quite as impressive, but still respectable at nine (London was deemed number one there).

However, our city's ranking on the livability list was 31 out of a total of 42 (or, in other words, 11th from last), while our environmental standing was unsurprisingly all the more embarrassing, coming in second to last behind only Moscow out of 42 other cities.

That left Beijing to settle for 17th place on the overall rankings, well behind Tokyo (at third, its first time to crack into the top three), New York (in second), and London (first).

Hopefully Beijing's dismal environmental ranking will improve in future rankings, which is possible given our city's 10 percent improvement in air quality so far this year. But there's plenty of reasons to doubt that too, especially recent findings that Beijing isn't living up to its obligations set by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), meaning the Global Power City Index top spot looks as lofty and far away as ever.

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