Toronto a top ten city on the rise

International property consultancy Knight Frank conducts an annual survey of the world's cities and rates them according to economic activity, political power, knowledge base and quality of life. The cities are then rated according to their scores and then ranked. New York, London and Tokyo usually dominate and round out the top three. But this time Toronto made the list (page 19), as Knight Frank found that it comes to honing ideas, Toronto is very influential.

Top 10 Cities

1. New York
2. London
3. Paris
4. Tokyo
5. Los Angeles
6. Brussels
7. Singapore
8. Berlin
9. Beijing
10. Toronto

Economic activity: Judged by economic output, income per head, financial and capital market activity and market share, number of international business headquarters in each city.

Political power: Judged by calculating the importance of each city to global political thought and opinion, identifying where power is held and influence exercised.

Knowledge and influence: Judged by assessing the educational status and the number and ranking of educational facilities.

Quality of life: Judged by personal and political freedom, censorship, personal security, crime, political stability, health facilities, public services, transport, culture and leisure, climate and quality of the environment.