Earlier this month, Resonance Consultancy published its 2024 World's Best Cities ranking. Or, in their words: its definitive power ranking of the 100 global cities that it believes are shaping tomorrow.

These are always fun to flip through, which is I guess why people do them and why people look at them; but I do think it's important to look at the underlying methodologies. Otherwise, what does "world's best" even really mean?

In this case, they're looking at global cities through the lens of three key categories: livability, lovability, and prosperity. More specifically though, the report looks at factors that are demonstrated to have moderate to strong correlations with attracting talent, visitors, and/or businesses.

This makes it distinct from rankings that are more focused on things like livability. Because according to Resonance, factors such as commute times, crime, and housing affordability don't tend to correlate strongly (at least in the short-term) with a city's ability to attract talent, tourism, and investment.

While this may seem a bit counterintuitive, it does also make sense. People don't move to London because they're looking for affordable housing and a reasonable commute. They move to London because they want to be in the center of the world.

And yes, London tops their power ranking:

The top of this ranking isn't all that surprising. It's the usual suspects. But I continue to be impressed by how quickly Dubai has transformed itself into a top global city. Also impressive is how Dublin punches above its weight of just over 500,000 people.

I am medium surprised to see Hong Kong nowhere on this first page (there are another 65 cities not shown here). It usually features as a top global city. But presumably this is the result of Beijing meddling. People are looking elsewhere -- like Singapore.

For the full list of cities and to download a copy of the report, click here.

@OceanJangda shared a great article with me today about "the psychological benefits of commuting to work." It is excellent, it cites a lot of psychological research, and I would encourage all of you to give it a read. While it is never fun getting on a packed subway in the morning, the argument is that there are psychological and other positive benefits to commuting. It turns out, we need breaks in our day.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

But here’s the strange part. Many people liberated from the commute have experienced a void they can’t quite name. In it, all theaters of life collapse into one. There are no beginnings or endings. The hero’s journey never happens. The threshold goes uncrossed. The sack of Troy blurs with Telemachus’s math homework. And employers—even the ones that have provided the tools for remote work—see cause for alarm. “No commute may be hurting, not helping, remote worker productivity,” a Microsoft report warned last fall. After-hours chats were up 69 percent among users of the company’s messaging platform, and workers were less engaged and more exhausted.

It also turns out that there's kind of a magic commute number. In the mid 1990s, Italian physicist Cesare Marchetti remarked that, all throughout history, humans have tended to cap their commute times at about 60 minutes per day. So a half hour each way. This was the case in ancient cities and it appears to be the case today (ignoring COVID).

What this mean is that as new technologies became available -- such as the automobile -- we were able to further decentralize and still only consume about 60 minutes of our day. Apparently the average one-way commute time in America is indeed about 27 minutes. Some people, of course, have much longer commutes, but this is the average. Currently mine is about 12-15 minutes with a coffee stop. Yes, it's luxurious.

This 60-minute rule of thumb has become known as Marchetti’s Constant. And there are a number of possible explanations for why this has remained the case. Again, the obvious one is that it helps us detach from work, which is why so many of us have felt burnt out while working from home. We haven't been shutting off and we need to.

For more on this, click here.

Earlier this month, Resonance Consultancy published its 2024 World's Best Cities ranking. Or, in their words: its definitive power ranking of the 100 global cities that it believes are shaping tomorrow.

These are always fun to flip through, which is I guess why people do them and why people look at them; but I do think it's important to look at the underlying methodologies. Otherwise, what does "world's best" even really mean?

In this case, they're looking at global cities through the lens of three key categories: livability, lovability, and prosperity. More specifically though, the report looks at factors that are demonstrated to have moderate to strong correlations with attracting talent, visitors, and/or businesses.

This makes it distinct from rankings that are more focused on things like livability. Because according to Resonance, factors such as commute times, crime, and housing affordability don't tend to correlate strongly (at least in the short-term) with a city's ability to attract talent, tourism, and investment.

While this may seem a bit counterintuitive, it does also make sense. People don't move to London because they're looking for affordable housing and a reasonable commute. They move to London because they want to be in the center of the world.

And yes, London tops their power ranking:

The top of this ranking isn't all that surprising. It's the usual suspects. But I continue to be impressed by how quickly Dubai has transformed itself into a top global city. Also impressive is how Dublin punches above its weight of just over 500,000 people.

I am medium surprised to see Hong Kong nowhere on this first page (there are another 65 cities not shown here). It usually features as a top global city. But presumably this is the result of Beijing meddling. People are looking elsewhere -- like Singapore.

For the full list of cities and to download a copy of the report, click here.

@OceanJangda shared a great article with me today about "the psychological benefits of commuting to work." It is excellent, it cites a lot of psychological research, and I would encourage all of you to give it a read. While it is never fun getting on a packed subway in the morning, the argument is that there are psychological and other positive benefits to commuting. It turns out, we need breaks in our day.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

But here’s the strange part. Many people liberated from the commute have experienced a void they can’t quite name. In it, all theaters of life collapse into one. There are no beginnings or endings. The hero’s journey never happens. The threshold goes uncrossed. The sack of Troy blurs with Telemachus’s math homework. And employers—even the ones that have provided the tools for remote work—see cause for alarm. “No commute may be hurting, not helping, remote worker productivity,” a Microsoft report warned last fall. After-hours chats were up 69 percent among users of the company’s messaging platform, and workers were less engaged and more exhausted.

It also turns out that there's kind of a magic commute number. In the mid 1990s, Italian physicist Cesare Marchetti remarked that, all throughout history, humans have tended to cap their commute times at about 60 minutes per day. So a half hour each way. This was the case in ancient cities and it appears to be the case today (ignoring COVID).

What this mean is that as new technologies became available -- such as the automobile -- we were able to further decentralize and still only consume about 60 minutes of our day. Apparently the average one-way commute time in America is indeed about 27 minutes. Some people, of course, have much longer commutes, but this is the average. Currently mine is about 12-15 minutes with a coffee stop. Yes, it's luxurious.

This 60-minute rule of thumb has become known as Marchetti’s Constant. And there are a number of possible explanations for why this has remained the case. Again, the obvious one is that it helps us detach from work, which is why so many of us have felt burnt out while working from home. We haven't been shutting off and we need to.

For more on this, click here.