Who Is The Biggest, The Cleanest, The Strongest?

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Indian cities are making waves in global rankings, but the results can be puzzling. While Hyderabad and Bengaluru top growth charts, they lag in innovation and quality of life. With numerous indices measuring everything from economic potential to mobility, Indian cities often find themselves on different ends of the spectrum. But do these rankings really reflect urban realities, or is there more to the story?

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Did you know that Hyderabad and Bengaluru were the top-performing cities in terms of growth in real estate and socio-economic parameters as per JLL’s City Momentum Index released earlier this year? However, at the same time, in various other indices, Hyderabad ranked 316 in its capacity to innovate, 143 in quality of living, 131 in its ability to attract High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) and 108th in its capacity to attract talent. While looking at indices can be insightful, it can also be confusing and contradictory as a result of varying methods and parameters.

In the past decades, various indices have emerged examining multiple dimensions of city living, such as real estate, mobility, and sustainability, among others. We analysed twenty-one popular global city indices to understand their origin, their focus, how Indian cities fare and which Indian cities appear in these indices. While many of them compare cities on the basis of their current standing on a set of parameters, there are others which rank cities based on their future potential, such as the ability to attract human resources, capital or HNWIs. With India opening up its economy in the early 1990s, Indian cities have also become centres of attraction for global capital. As a result, Indian cities have started figuring in many such indices. This article analyses some such rankings in which Indian cities have featured.

City rankings originated in a rapidly globalising world

City rankings originated in the context of a rapidly globalising world where citizens, rather than workers, are becoming global. These rankings were often created to allow global companies to benchmark salaries for their global workers. Some older and well-established indices were developed by companies which transcended global boundaries in doing business or helping global businesses. For example, EIU has been publishing the Liveability Index while “helping businesses, financial firms and governments to understand how the world is changing and how that creates opportunities to be seized and risks to be managed”.

Mercer has been publishing the Quality of Living City Ranking in order to “enable multinational companies and other organisations to compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments”. UBS, for the past 4 decades, has been publishing a Prices and Earnings survey which attempts to benchmark the cost of living across these cities and hence shares insights such as the most expensive city to live in or which city provides the highest wages to its workers.

More than half of the indices focus on economic ranking of cities

Source: Nāgrika

In the indices we analysed, we found that more than half of the indices focus on the economic ranking of the cities, measuring economic growth, real estate, the ability to attract foreign investments, the ability to attract talent and other such aspects of a city. Only two rankings captured a holistic view of the cities and measured overall quality of life. Three rankings measured the state of mobility/transport or driving conditions. Just two indices measured the sustainability of the cities.

Forty per cent of indices have been produced by research agencies

Almost 40% of the indices have been produced by different kinds of research agencies. These include agencies which specialise in data innovation and analysis, business research arms of global publications (EIU of the Economist and fDI intelligence of Financial Times), global organisations such as UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and other specialised research organisations, among others. A breakdown of the types of organisations preparing these indices is presented alongside.

Source: Nāgrika

Indian cities are present in rankings related to economic growth

The rankings in which Indian cities have found themselves are rankings related to economic growth as measured by factors such as financial potential, potential to attract talent, capital, HNWIs, levels of business activity, and real estate potential, among others. Other rankings in which Indian cities have featured include those related to mobility, quality of life, and sustainability, among others.

Indian cities have been top-ranked in rankings related to real estate and traffic congestion. The other index where Indian cities have been top performers is the JLL’s City Momentum Index, which identifies the cities that have the “strongest positive momentum in their economies and real estate markets over a short to medium term”. Indian cities have also been rated higher as destinations of foreign direct investments.

At a macro level, Indian cities’ performance is captured in the following infographic:

Source: Nāgrika

Amongst these 21 indices, which featured at least 30 cities, while some featured up to 500 cities, only 15 Indian cities appeared in these indices. Though most Indian cities appeared in only one or two indices, Mumbai was included in 20 indices, Delhi in 18, Bengaluru in 10, and Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata in 9 each. The other cities that were included are Ahmedabad, Gurgaon, GIFT City, Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Madurai, Pune and Surat. Most of these cities are major and large urban centres, such as state capitals, industrial towns, service hubs, and cultural centres in India. Most of them have a population of 1 million or above except GIFT City and Gurgaon.

"An index is a great leveler"

George Bernard Shaw famously said the above, though perhaps referring to the index of books. It ought to hold true for these indices as well, as they are supposed to compare the cities on similar measures. Starting with an intent to help the decision-making of global businesses, these rankings have evolved into yardsticks for governments as well as citizens to make such comparisons. 

Increasingly they are also becoming a tool for branding cities as well. A city which is rated highly for its quality of living, or its pollution levels, or crime gets tagged with such an image. However, within India the international rankings have not yet created significant discussion or action at the city level, especially the ones which rate Indian cities. Many of them do not make it to mainstream media reports in India or in the local media of the cities.

On the flip side, there have been a number of domestic rankings that seem to have some impact on the behaviour of Indian cities at the local level. The Government of India, in the last few years, has developed rankings of its own which benchmark its own cities against each other. Smart Cities Ranking, Ease of Living Index, and Swachh Bharat Rankings are some such rankings. Based on the administrative data collected by the government, it also has compiled them as per various categories in terms of city sizes, level of urbanisation, and progress in various programmes.

These indices have the potential of nudging cities to improve their performance and hence their ranks. Indian city governments have started to respond to the national indices.

In some cases, rankings such as Swachh Sarvekshan have also led to household-level conversations. It is logical that the domestic rankings invoke greater conversations. Many of them also include citizen feedback, hence bringing the index to the doorsteps of citizens. In future, hopefully more robust and holistic indices which stand for their authenticity and rigour can guide the decision-making.