The current ranking of ‘Global Cities’ by Oxford Economics confirmed the exceptional position and performance of Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv reached an excellent position at 30th place in the global index of the most important 1.000 cities in the world. That’s huge!
The 1,000 largest cities in the world are responsible for around 60% of the global gross national product (2023). “In the decade preceding the Covid-19 outbreak, 70% of cities outperformed their respective countries in terms of either GDP or employment growth“, wrote Oxford Economics.
Global cities are of paramount importance for the development of a nation and a state. Israel is well advised to accelerate the development of the two major Israeli cities of Haifa and Jerusalem because that is where Israel’s future lies.
Haifa in particular is a stepchild of the central administration and is often ignored. But Haifa also has sufficiently homemade problems: One is the administration and the de-facto non-existent public structure, which is more like a developing country than one of the leading industrial nations with one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean.
Back to the Oxford Economics ‘Global Index’. The index weighs five main factors: economics, human capital, environment, quality of life, and bureaucracy/governance. The resulting overall index may yield no surprises. In general, the Middle East is of no relevance.
For this bad status quo, the failed cultural algorithms of Islam are to blame. Iran and the lack of democracy in the Middle East, torn by islamic (sic!) terrorism and antisemitism, pull the region down. Iran, Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia are to blame. The Middle East pays a high price for its anti-Semitism and unwillingness to acknowledge the State of Israel.
The top 10 cities are located in North America, Western Europe, East Asia, and Oceania. The Middle East, South Asia, Latin America, and Africa are of no relevance.
(c) Oxford Economics
Back to Tel Aviv and Israel: The main problem for Tel Aviv’s excellent ranking is the governance resp. the bureaucracy. They, the bureaucracy and the deep state, are in general Israel’s main problem and are causing Israel to lose significant ground in all other rankings, for example in the ranking for ‘Artificial Intelligence’ as recently reported on ‘VonNaftali‘.
“The sole city from the Middle East
& North Africa region in the top 50,
Tel Aviv performs highly due to its
Economics and Human Capital scores“, wrote Oxford Economics. The “rest” of the analysis concerning Tel Aviv and Israel by Oxford Economics is highly questionable, because of some very biased anti-Israeli assumptions.
(c) Graphic by Oxford Economics
Israel has a massive problem with its bureaucracy, and one might say its elites of “the unelected” in general. They have made themselves very cozy and comfortable in the State of Israel. It is understandable why the elites are so resistant to any reform.
It would immediately jeopardize their prunes and oligopoly of some families and “friends-bring-friends” networks and other closed shop/bubble systems.
However, non-reform endangers the overall well-being of the population and the state of Israel as such. Ultimately, the population pays actually a very high price, in a very literal sense, for these privileged elites at the supermarket checkouts or rental prices, or even the purchase of a simple car.
In sum, Israel can hold its own under extremely difficult conditions, but the main problems for its poorer performance are home-made. That is also the good news because it can be solved. A Justicial and state reform is necessary.
Fun Facts: Berlin is ranked at position 43 and Vienna is ranked at position 49
Photo: Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0