WHAT does it take to be great? Or more specifically, because this is a travel blog, to be a great city? This dinner-party discussion has been turned into the basis for a book by TimeOut. It includes a list of the ten greatest cities in the world, which is most conveniently available on the website of the Times.
Writers around the world were asked to rate the cities where they live in six categories: architecture/cityscape, arts and culture, buzz, food and drink, quality of life, and world status. In-house experts added marks of their own, and the figures were then adjusted for “local cynicism or over-enthusiasm”. The end result, drawn from a long list of 75 cities, was a top ranking for New York, followed by London and Paris. Nothing too surprising there. With quality of life counting for relatively little, the Canadian, Swiss and Australian cities that dominate so many similar rankings struggled.
By using nebulous categories such as "buzz" and "world status”, TimeOut's list sheds some light on what makes the likes of New York and London "great". But however it's been engineered, the result looks pretty sensible.
The "World's Greatest Cities", top ten: 1. New York 2. London 3. Paris 4. Berlin 5= Chicago, Barcelona, Tokyo 8. Istanbul 9= Rome, Sydney.