Take Three: Urban Geopolitics And Chicago

I've covered the urban geopolitical worldview of Peter Taylor and Saskia Sassen. For Taylor, Chicago is part of the noise. For Sassen, Chicago is a geopolitical heavyweight. Urbanphoto throwing down the gauntlet:

Is Chicago "dying" as a world city? http://goo.gl/z7YBc  Or "rising"? http://goo.gl/xondW  Actual evidence for either point might help.

Fair enough. I submit for your consideration, "The Wealth Report 2013: The Global Perspective on Prime Property and Wealth." Turn to page 22. The rankings explained:

In our attempt to create the most rounded assessment of the locations that matter to the world’s wealthy, our Global Cities Survey examines four key themes: economic activity; political power; quality of life; and knowledge & influence.

To create each ranking we have scoured the world of urban academia and research and analysed the results of the most authoritative studies from the likes of the Economist Intelligence Unit and the United Nations.

For each theme, every city is ranked from one (strongest) to 40 (weakest). Aggregate rank determines each city’s final position in the survey.

Political and economic power are conventional geopolitical metrics. New York is number 1 in the world for economic activity. Washington, DC is number 1 for political power. Chicago isn't in the top 5 for either measure, ranking 13th for economic power and 29th for political power.

More about knowledge and influence:

Finally, we examine each city’s knowledge base, assessing educational status and the number and ranking of educational facilities. We then look at how well each city transmits this knowledge, looking at the number of national and international media organisations and news bureaux, and the international market share of locally-based media.

Chicago scores better than average, ranked 14th. However, New York (2), Boston (5), and Los Angeles (10) are superior. In fact, NYC, DC, and Boston rank ahead of Chicago overall. All hail Greater Greater New York. At best, Chicago can argue that it is America's most important city outside of the center of geopolitical power.