The role of rankings in growing city competition

Abstract

This paper concentrates on the question of how cities cope with the results of national and international city rankings and how a specific ranking approach can be used as a strategic instrument for policy advice. Introducing this topic, the first section provides a discussion of benefits and limits of city rankings. Based on this discussion, a comprehensive city-ranking approach is developed, which tries to meet the requirements of knowledge-based economic urban development by defining and applying an innovative sample of indicators. Finally, the paper elaborates the meaning of city rankings as a knowledge-based instrument as well as the possibilities for cities to make use of ranking results. Answering these issues, the paper concludes with proposals for making city rankings a more significant and effective instrument for steering economic, social and spatial processes in cities: it suggests recommendations for researchers and analysts dealing with the design and methodology of city rankings, on the one hand, and for local governments and stakeholders concerning the reasonable handling of results on the other. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.