via the Toronto Star (Â Toronto rated as powerhouse: City rubs elbows with likes of New York and Tokyo on Forbes list of urban economic giants comes news of Forbes crunching the numbers from PricewaterhouseCoopers “GDP urban economies”, MasterCard’s “centers of commerce” index, and an UBS “estimate of living expenses and earnings” to produce : World’s Most Economically Powerful Cities.
In summary : 1. London; 2. Hong Kong; 3. New York 4; Tokyo; 5. Chicago; 6. Seoul; 7. Paris; 8. Los Angeles; 9. Shanghai; 10. Toronto
The Details for Toronto (the GTA) read : GDP (2005): $209 billion; GDP (2020): $327 billion; Growth rate: 3%; MasterCard ranking: 13; Population (2007): 5,213,000; Purchasing power (NYC=100): 113.8%
Forbes also had this to say :
Toronto only narrowly edged out Madrid, Spain; Philadelphia and Mexico City, Mexico, to hang on at No. 10. Toronto is still the economic heart of one of the world’s wealthiest countries, and it’s projected to keep humming through 2020. Along with London, Toronto is the fastest growing G7 financial center.
The other interesting comment from Forbes is :
For sovereign nations, it’s easy to find measures of almost every variable imaginable–gross domestic product (GDP), inflation, money flows and other metrics. After all, the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund all deal with governments at the national level. But for corporations, cities and their economies matter most, since picking the right city will be the key to prosperity in the future.