Abstract

CORDOBA ORDONEZ, Juan  and  GAGO GARCIA, Cándida. The rankings of world cities: where is Mexico City positioned?. Invest. Geog [online]. 2019, n.100, e60019.  Epub Feb 27, 2020. ISSN 2448-7279.  https://doi.org/10.14350/rig.60019.

Since the global city concept became widely known, new listings are set out each day prioritizing the major cities of the world according to various indicators or summary indices that bring together groups of variables. These rankings are becoming instruments of neo-liberal planning used by institutions and companies alike to accommodate cities on the global competition game board. This paper analyzes the rank of Mexico City in some of the major classifications of this sort, supplemented with an approximation to its international air connectivity as an indicator of its role within the global stage. It also reveals the scope of its area of influence and its interdependence relationships within the macro-regional framework. Our results demonstrate the interdependence of Mexico City with its neighbors in North and Central America, and highlight a prominent positioning of this urban center in the top academic ranking analyzed. The study also shows an ambiguous positioning in the main rankings of global cities elaborated by private consulting firms. This positioning evidences, nonetheless, that Mexico City offers creative and socializing options of interest, which could be used by urban-planning agencies to enhance its uniqueness within a global competition scenario. From conceptual and methodological perspectives, this work has been conceived as a contribution to the contemporary analysis of urban areas from a relational perspective, that is, from the renewed regional perspective advocated in Geography since the late 20th century.

Keywords : global city; planning; competition; connectivity; relational perspective.

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