McKinsey recently published a report called Digital globalization: The new era of global flows.

The overarching thesis is that we are transitioning to a data-driven global economy:

“Flows of physical goods and finance were the hallmarks of the 20th-century global economy, but today those flows have flattened or declined. Twenty-first-century globalization is increasingly defined by flows of data and information. This phenomenon now underpins virtually all cross-border transactions within traditional flows while simultaneously transmitting a valuable stream of ideas and innovation around the world.”

One of the benefits of this shift is that it has become easier for emerging economies and individuals from all around the world to participate.

Of course, not all countries and cities are participating equally. In their report, McKinsey ranks the top cities according to five global flows. In each case a proxy was used:

“Unfortunately, data on global flows are not available at the city level. However, we have obtained data that serve as proxies for each of our five global flows. Container port volumes approximate goods flows; airport passenger volumes serve as a proxy for goods, service, and people flows; the ranking of cities in the Global Financial Centers Index by the Z/Yen Group provides an indication of financial flows; the number of foreign-born residents in a city measures people flows; and Internet bandwidth approximates data flows.” 

Using this methodology, they believe that the world only has 8 truly global cities right now: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Dubai. They are the colored cities listed below:

I always take these city rankings with a grain of salt. This stuff is not easy to quantify and a lot depends on the methodology that you use. 

For instance, Atlanta sits on the top of “goods, services, and people” because it has the busiest airport in the world according to passenger volume. (It’s the primary hub of Delta Air Lines.) But is that enough to assert that Atlanta is #1? Maybe. Maybe not.

In any case, the report is packed full of information. If you’d like to take a look, click here.