New York, Los Angeles and London have been identified as the world’s most resilient cities, according to the Resilient Cities Index published in Impacts, Savills’ global real estate research programme.
The international consultancy assessed 500 cities based on four metrics: economic fundamentals, knowledge and technology economy, ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and real estate market. The three cities share potential as strategic locations with an economic and industrial fabric formed by large companies that focus on leveraging the entrepreneurial ecosystem, which contributes to the stability of the real estate markets and the economic and financial progress of the cities.
Tokyo, San Francisco, Paris, Seoul and Boston are in second place, according to Savills. Taking into account the volume of investment worldwide, Los Angeles stole the first place from New York, and Paris overtook London for the second consecutive year.
Similarly, Seoul, seventh in the ranking, is the only one of the top ten investment cities to have recorded investment growth in 2020. European cities stood out in ESG factors, with Nordic cities taking the top spots.
Forecasts
Looking ahead, the index reveals that cities in Asia such as China’s Bangalore (India) and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Min will increase their GDP over the next five years, with annual growth rates of 9.8% and 8.5% respectively in the case of the latter two, something that will move them up the index.
Savills’ global head of Capital Markets, Simon Hope, highlights that while pandemic has made some “question the future of cities themselves”, “it is clear” that these are still the most important places for human interaction and property investment. “However, the world is going through an evolution that is not just due to the pandemic,” he comments.
Hope stresses it is “critical” that, if adoption of ESG criteria is slow, developers, owners and tenants work together to increase the “resilience” of cities.