FIGUREA VIEW AT OUR METROPOLITAN WORLD

EDITED BY

RAFAEL LUNADONGWOO YIM

Work in progress by

FIGUREGROUND239 Causeway Street, Suite G2Boston, MA 02114

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

SECTION 1

4 Global Ranking10 Analysis of Cities12 New Ranking16 Ranking Flow18 World Mapping22 The Metropolis

FIG

URE

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SECTION 1

GLOBAL RANKING 7 World Surveys

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this booklet is to publicly show the progress that we are making on our research, encouraging participation from anyone around the world. Please feel free to browse, and send us comments, links, essay, or thoughts on the matter.

The research began at the end of 2010, our data reflects this date. For this first section we were interested in world ranking systems, and we found several surveys, but we selected 7 surveys that ranked cities numerically. This way it would be easier to establish a base line for comparison. These surveys have different criteria for ranking

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GLOBAL RANKING

GLOBAL CITIES INDEX

1 New York City 2 London 3 Tokyo 4 Paris 5 Hong Kong 6 Chicago 7 Los Angeles 8 Singapore 9 Sydney 10 Seoul 11 Brussels 12 San Francisco 13 Washington, D.C. 14 Toronto 15 Beijing 16 Berlin 17 Madrid 18 Vienna 19 Boston 20 Frankfurt am Main 20 Shanghai 22 Buenos Aires 23 Stockholm 24 Zurich 25 Moscow 26 Barcelona 27 Dubai 28 Rome 29 Amsterdam 30 Mexico City

Global City IndexGlobal Power City IndexWorld City SurveyGlobal Financial CentresWorld’s Most Economically Powerful CitiesWorldwide Centres of Commerce IndexNumber of Millionaires

cities, which is reflected on their lists of cities. Each of teh surveys show an array of different cities, in different positions. By cross-referencing these surveys, we could create a ranking of our own that reflected the merger of all the different aspects taken into consideration by each individual sur-vey. The seven surveys used by us are: Global City Index, Global Power City Index, World City Survey, Global Financial Centres, World’s Most Economi-cally Powerful Cities, Worldwide Centres of Com-merce Index, and the Number of Millionaires.We have marked each ranking survey with a symbol, which will be repeated throughout the research.

To read more about some of these ranking please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

FIGUREGROUND - Global Ranking

SECTION 1

GLOBAL POWER CITY INDEX

1 New York City2 London3 Paris4 Tokyo5 Singapore6 Berlin7 Vienna8 Amsterdam9 Zurich10 Hong Kong11 Madrid12 Seoul13 Los Angeles14 Sydney15 Toronto16 Frankfurt am Main17 Copenhagen18 Brussels19 Geneva20 Boston

WORLD CITY SURVEY

1 New York2 London3 Paris4 Tokyo5 Los Angeles6 Brussels7 Singapore8 Berlin9 Beijing10 Toronto11 Chicago12 Washington, D.C.13 Seoul14 Hong Kong15 Frankfurt16 Sydney17 San Francisco18 Bangkok19 Shanghai20 Zurich

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GLOBAL RANKING

GLOBAL FINANCIAL CENTRES INDEX

1 London2 New York3 Hong Kong4 Singapore5 Tokyo6 Shanghai7 Chicago8 Zurich9 Geneva10 Sydney

WORLD’S MOST ECONOMICALLY POWERFUL CITIES

1 London2 Hong Kong3 New York City4 Tokyo5 Chicago6 Seoul7 Paris8 Los Angeles9 Shanghai10 Toronto

FIGUREGROUND - Global Ranking

SECTION 1

WORLDWIDE CENTRES OF COMMERCE INDEX

NUMBER OF MILLIONAIRES (US $)

1 London2 New York3 Tokyo4 Singapore5 Chicago6 Hong Kong7 Paris8 Frankfurt9 Seoul10 Amsterdam

1 New York City 2 London 3 Moscow4 Hong Kong5 Los Angeles6 Dallas7 Istanbul8 San Francisco 9 Chicago Mumbai Sao Paulo Tokyo10

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GLOBAL RANKING

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SECTION 1

ANALYSIS OF CITIES

COMPARISON OF SURVEYS

We made a list of all the cities that appeared in general surveys that we found. These cities were separated by continent, and were marked when they appeared in one of the 7 surveys selected. This process is to narrow down the selection of cities, into the ones that can be categorized numerically. The seven surveys are represented by their symbol. When a city appears in a survey, the symbol of the survey is fille din black. Cities that appear in the top 3 spots are filled with red.

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GLOBAL RANKING

AMERICAS

Belo Horizonte

Bogota

Boston

Buenos Aires

Calgary

Charlotte

Chicago

Dallas

Lima

Los Angeles

Mexico City

Montreal

New York

Panama City

Rio de Janeiro

San Francisco

Santiago

Sao Paulo

Toronto

Vancouver

Washington DC

ASIA

Bangalore

Bangkok

Beijing

Chennai

Colombo

Dubai

Ho Chi Minh City

Hong Kong

Islamabad

Jakarta

Karachi

Kolkata

Kuala Lumpur

Metro Manila

Mumbai

New Delhi

Osaka

Shanghai

Shenzhen

Singapore

Seoul

Taipei

Tokyo

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SECTION 1

OCEANIA

Auckland

Melbourne

Sydney

Wellington

AFRICA

Cairo

Johannesburg

Lagos

EUROPE

Amsterdam

Athens

Barcelona

Berlin

Brussels

Budapest

Copenhagen

Dublin

Edinburgh

Frankfurt am Main

Geneva

Helsinki

Istanbul

Lisbon

London

Madrid

Milan

Moscow

Oslo

Paris

Prague

Rome

Stockholm

Vienna

Warsaw

Zurich

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GLOBAL RANKING

DEVELOPING A NEW RANKING

After all cities have been marked accodring to their surveys, we grouped cities by the amount of times that they had appeared on a survey. New York, London, Tokyo, and Hong Kong appeared in al 7 surveys, so they form the first group of top cities. Chicago was the only city to appear on 6 surveys so it stands alone in the second group. This process continuos till we separated 7 groups. Within each group, we calculated which city ap-peared the most on at the top of each survey. New York appeared in all 7 surveys as a top city, as well as London, but New York appeared more times as a number 1 city, which take the number one spot in our survey. This second process could only be accomplished till the fith group. Group 6 and 7 couldn’t be ranked numerically, since they only appeared once or twice amongst the 7 surveys. This didn’t provide sufficient data to compare.

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SECTION 1

1. NEW YORK2. LONDON3. TOKYO4. HONG KONG

5. CHICAGO

6. PARIS7. SINGAPORE8. LOS ANGELES9. SEOUL

10. SHANGHAI11. TORONTO12. SYDNEY13. FRANKFURT14. ZURICH

15. Brussels16. Berlin17. San Francisco18. Amsterdam

BeijingBostonGenevaMadridMoscowViennaWashington DC

BangkokBarcelonaBuenos AiresCopenhagenDallasDubaiIstanbulMexico CityMumbaiRomeSao PauloStockholm

Global City IndexGlobal Power City IndexWorld City SurveyGlobal Financial CentresWorld’s Most Economically Powerful CitiesWorldwide Centres of Commerce IndexNumber of Millionaires

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GLOBAL RANKING

1 New York City 2 London 3 Tokyo

5 Hong Kong

1 New York City 2 London

4 Hong Kong

Tokyo

1 New York City2 London

4 Tokyo

10 Hong Kong

1 New York2 London

4 Tokyo

14 Hong Kong

1 London2 New York3 Hong Kong

5 Tokyo

1 London2 Hong Kong3 New York City4 Tokyo

1 London2 New York3 Tokyo

6 Hong Kong

1. NEW YORK2. LONDON3. TOKYO4. HONG KONG

6 Chicago

9 Chicago

11 Chicago

7 Chicago

5 Chicago 5 Chicago

5. CHICAGO10 Seoul

12 Seoul13 Seoul

6 Seoul

9 Seoul

9. SEOUL

7 Los Angeles

5 Los Angeles

13 Los Angeles

5 Los Angeles

8 Los Angeles

8. LOS ANGELES

8 Singapore

5 Singapore

7 Singapore

4 Singapore 4 Singapore

7. SINGAPORE

4 Paris 3 Paris

7 Paris

6. PARIS

24 Zurich

9 Zurich

20 Zurich

8 Zurich

14. ZURICH

20 Frankfurt am Main

16 Frankfurt am Main15 Frankfurt

8 Frankfurt

13. FRANKFURT

9 Sydney

14 Sydney

16 Sydney

10 Sydney

12. SYDNEY

14 Toronto15 Toronto

10 Toronto 10 Toronto

11. TORONTO

20 Shanghai

19 Shanghai

6 Shanghai

9 Shanghai

10. SHANGHAI

11 Brussels

18 Brussels

6 Brussels

15. Brussels

16 Berlin

6 Berlin

8 Berlin

16. Berlin

12 San Francisco

8 San Francisco

17 San Francisco

17. San Francisco

29 Amsterdam

8 Amsterdam

10 Amsterdam

18. Amsterdam

13 Washington, D.C.

15 Beijing

17 Madrid 18 Vienna 19 Boston

25 Moscow

3 Moscow

7 Vienna

11 Madrid

19 Geneva20 Boston

9 Beijing

12 Washington, D.C.

9 Geneva

Washington DCBostonMadridViennaGenevaMoscowBeijing

22 Buenos Aires 23 Stockholm

26 Barcelona 27 Dubai 28 Rome

30 Mexico City

6 Dallas7 Istambul

MumbaiSao Paulo

17 Copenhagen18 Bangkok

CopenhagenStockholmIstanbulBarcelonaRomeMumbaiBangkokDubaiBuenos AiresSao PauloMexico CityDallas

3 Paris

7 Paris

RANKING FLOWDIAGRAM FOR CROSS-REFERENCE OF RANKING

FIGUREGROUND - Global Ranking

SECTION 1

1 New York City 2 London 3 Tokyo

5 Hong Kong

1 New York City 2 London

4 Hong Kong

Tokyo

1 New York City2 London

4 Tokyo

10 Hong Kong

1 New York2 London

4 Tokyo

14 Hong Kong

1 London2 New York3 Hong Kong

5 Tokyo

1 London2 Hong Kong3 New York City4 Tokyo

1 London2 New York3 Tokyo

6 Hong Kong

1. NEW YORK2. LONDON3. TOKYO4. HONG KONG

6 Chicago

9 Chicago

11 Chicago

7 Chicago

5 Chicago 5 Chicago

5. CHICAGO10 Seoul

12 Seoul13 Seoul

6 Seoul

9 Seoul

9. SEOUL

7 Los Angeles

5 Los Angeles

13 Los Angeles

5 Los Angeles

8 Los Angeles

8. LOS ANGELES

8 Singapore

5 Singapore

7 Singapore

4 Singapore 4 Singapore

7. SINGAPORE

4 Paris 3 Paris

7 Paris

6. PARIS

24 Zurich

9 Zurich

20 Zurich

8 Zurich

14. ZURICH

20 Frankfurt am Main

16 Frankfurt am Main15 Frankfurt

8 Frankfurt

13. FRANKFURT

9 Sydney

14 Sydney

16 Sydney

10 Sydney

12. SYDNEY

14 Toronto15 Toronto

10 Toronto 10 Toronto

11. TORONTO

20 Shanghai

19 Shanghai

6 Shanghai

9 Shanghai

10. SHANGHAI

11 Brussels

18 Brussels

6 Brussels

15. Brussels

16 Berlin

6 Berlin

8 Berlin

16. Berlin

12 San Francisco

8 San Francisco

17 San Francisco

17. San Francisco

29 Amsterdam

8 Amsterdam

10 Amsterdam

18. Amsterdam

13 Washington, D.C.

15 Beijing

17 Madrid 18 Vienna 19 Boston

25 Moscow

3 Moscow

7 Vienna

11 Madrid

19 Geneva20 Boston

9 Beijing

12 Washington, D.C.

9 Geneva

Washington DCBostonMadridViennaGenevaMoscowBeijing

22 Buenos Aires 23 Stockholm

26 Barcelona 27 Dubai 28 Rome

30 Mexico City

6 Dallas7 Istambul

MumbaiSao Paulo

17 Copenhagen18 Bangkok

CopenhagenStockholmIstanbulBarcelonaRomeMumbaiBangkokDubaiBuenos AiresSao PauloMexico CityDallas

3 Paris

7 Paris

RANKING FLOW DIAGRAM

We color coded each group of cities to make it easier to visuallize the flow of movement of each city as they change position in each survey.

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GLOBAL RANKING

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SECTION 1

WORLD MAPPINGPOPULATION/ WORLD’S INFLUENTIAL CITIES

WORLD DIAGRAMS

The following diagrams represent the world population distribution on the left, and the world’s most influential cities on the right.

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GLOBAL RANKING

OCEANIA 00.5%

ASIA 60%

EUROPE 11%NORTH AMERICA 6.5%

SOUTH AMERICA 7%

AFRICA 15%

LIVE IN CITIES

10% (1900)50% (2007)75% (2050)LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

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SECTION 1

Asia (East)

TOKYOOSAKA

SEOULBEIJING

SHANGHAITAIPEI

HONG KONGMANILAHO CHI MINH CITYBANGKOKKUALA LUMPUR

SINGAPOURJAKARTA

Americas

NEW YORKCHICAGOLOS ANGELESSAN FRANCISCOWASHINGTON DCBOSTONCHARLOTTE

TORONTOMONTREALMEXICO CITYPANAMA CITYBOGOTACARACASBELO HORIZONTERIO DE JANEIROSAO PAULOSANTIAGOBUENOS AIRES

Europe

LONDONPARISLISBONMADRIDBARCELONADUBLINEDINBURGH

AMSTERDAMBRUSSELSFRANKFURTZURICHGENEVAMILANROMEATHENS

BERLINPRAGUEVIENNABUDAPESTWARSAWCOPENHAGENOSLOHELSINKISTOCKHOLMISTAMBULMOSCOW

Oceania

SYDNEYMELBOURNEAUKLANDWELLINGTON

ASIA (West/South)

MUMBAINEW DEHLIBANGALORECHENNAIKARACHIISLAMABADDUBAI

Africa

JOHANNESBURGCAIROLAGOS

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GLOBAL RANKING

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SECTION 1

THE METROPOLISESSAY BY RAFAEL LUNA

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GLOBAL RANKING

THE METROPOLISRAFAEL LUNA

In “The Culture of Congestion”, Rem Koolhaas de-fines the metropolis as a condition of an explosive growth in technology with a massive increase in population in a limited space. This condition refers to the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, where rapid industrialization took place producing an influx of migrations due to the increase in job opportunities. The merging population created a new social dynamic, with new possibilities in architecture that were ex-plored as the birth of metropolitan architecture.Karl Marx describes this new social condition as a new stratification of social classes; the ruling class and the working class, defined as the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. New social classes generated an unbalanced condition, where property and power were concentrated in the hands of few. With the growth of industry within the city, the housing for the proletariat became inadequate.John Ruskin describes a scene from one of his experiences driving through the country side of England, where he couldn’t go past one hundred yards without seeing a furnace or a mill. It seemed that urbanity had spread as an industrial field. It could be conceived that the Metropolis and the urban setting would just turn into vast districts of fabrication and production. This would imply that architecture would cease to be, since the urban setting would just be industry. Ruskin stated that design couldn’t be generated from this condition.Following with the idea of impossibility of art and

design, William Morris talked about the death of both intellectual art and decorative art. They had been lost both to the industry. “Art comes from the joy of labor,” William Morris. But, labor had been turned into production and reproduction. Walter Benjamin suggested that the reproduction vanishes traces of tradition.

This is reflected in architecture by Karel Teige, who reflects on the social conditions of the proletariat, their work life of reproduction, and the lack of housing for them. He suggests that an “Interna-tional Modern Architecture” should tackle the problems of the minimum dwelling to solve social implications of collective housing. Spaces would no longer be classified as bedroom, kitchen, living room, but they would reflect the living and work-ing conditions of the time. A space might consist of areas for sleeping, eating, and resting without implying a classification or assigned program.Georg Simmel describes the social implications of the rapid industry and minimum dwelling as one of individuality. There was a jump in scale form the slow moving rural condition to the rapid explo-sive Metropolis. The individual became reserved and respected individuality as a mode of existing in the metropolis. The rapid pace generated two things, the reserved individual that didn’t seek interaction, and the second, constant stimulations for the senses. The constant stimulation gener-ated the “Blasé-attitude”, which was a process achieved after constant metropolitan stimulation. “The blasé attitude results first from the rapidly changing and closely compressed contrasting stimulations of the nerves. From this, the enhance-ment of metropolitan intellectuality, also, seems originally to stem. Therefore, stupid people who are not intellectually alive in the first place usually are not exactly blasé. A life in boundless pursuit of pleasure makes one blasé because it agitates the nerves to their strongest reactivity for such a long time that they finally cease to react at all. In the same way, through the rapidity and contradictori-ness of their changes, more harmless impressions force such violent responses, tearing the nerves so brutally hither and thither that their last reserves of strength are spent; and if one remains in the same milieu they have no time to gather new

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SECTION 1

strength. An incapacity thus emerges to react to new sensations with the appropriate energy. This constitutes that blasé attitude which, in fact, every metropolitan child shows when compared with children of quieter and less changeable milieus.” Simmel

In 1977 Rem Koolhaas revisited all this notions and envisioned the potential possibilities that the metropolis generated for architecture. The indus-try generated new technologies that created new social possibilities. He explains this effect using Connie Island as an example. After the Brooklyn Bridge was opened, the once virgin island re-ceived up to a million people in a good day. The first change was the “cow”. There wasn’t enough land to have real cows to produce enough milk to quench the thirst of the visitors, so the cow ma-chine was invented, which artificially generated more milk. Same with horses, and horseback rid-ing as a pastime. This was replaced by the ‘steeple chase’ in a mechanical race track. The invention of electricity allowed for night bathing, since the shoreline wasn’t long enough to accommodate all the visitors during the day. To counteract the Blasé-attitude and the lonely individual, “Barrels of Love” and the “Tunnel of Love” were created. The Metropolis could be generated by artificiality of technology and ingenuity of the mind.More importantly, the advances in technology generated new architecture spaces. Otis invented the safety-catch on elevators, which allowed for the skyscraper to be generated. this allowed for singular spaces, non-specific to the building at different levels. The 100-story building could have 1/3 commercial, 1/3 business, 1/3 residential, with urban plazas at every 20th level. A new social mix-ing and interaction is possible. New programs that have never been thought off could be conceived, “Eating oysters, naked, with gloves, on the 9th floor.” Koolhass.

So where is the Metropolis moving on as we rapid-ly advance in technology, and urbanity continues to take over? Areas like Bos-Wash, Benelux, Blue Banana exist where strips of constant construction makes it difficult to identify where the Metropolis ends and a “Megalopolis” begins. Our built envi-

ronment is rapidly responding to these conditions by means of new typologies that reflect a new way of life. Cities like Tokyo have a tradition of growing new typologies. In the book “Made in Tokyo”, some ex-amples of these typologies have been catalogued in order to express the non-architectural condition of hybridity that occurs in their buildings. These “no-good” buildings, reflect the nature of the city and how new spaces are derived of the constant urbanity. ex. Highways house retail spaces inder their structure. Every single pocket space is uti-lized to its maximum potential in order to main-tain an urban standard for the city.

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GLOBAL RANKING

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SECTION 1

MORE TO COME

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FIGUREGROUND239 Causeway Street, Suite G2Boston, MA 02114

© 2011 FIGUREGROUND - All Rights Reserved

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GLOBAL RANKING