November 2019
Global Cities Outlook Growth will slow in 2020-21 in nearly two-thirds of the world’s cities Economist Stephen Adams Senior Economist +44(0)20 3910 8084
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We forecast that of the world’s 900 major cities, 586 will experience slower
annual growth in 2020-21 than in the previous five years. The current slowdown in global trade is hurting many manufacturing-intensive cities, while others are affected by weaker growth in demand for traded services.
Among those set to show the most marked slowdowns is San Jose (Silicon Valley). In North America, cities on the west coast and in the south have generally been setting the pace in recent years, but in the next two years we forecast that they will outperform other large cities by much smaller margins than in the past.
In Europe, eastern cities will continue to set the pace. London, having seen its growth This is a free extract of the full research note available for subscribers of our Global Cities service.
fall sharply, should see a modest improvement in the next two years, performing broadly in line with other major cities, where once it easily out-performed.
Chinese cities are slowing while Indian cities are booming. Other strong performers in the next two years include Ho Chi Minh City and Phnom Penh, while Japanese cities will continue to grow very slowly.
Problems (largely but not only political) will continue to dog several Latin American For those who are not subscribers to the service, please click here to request a free trial and to
cities, with Caracas clearly the major LatAm city in greatest distress. Many Middle Eastern and African cities are challenged by their reliance on commodity markets, not-least oil, and are seeing only slow growth.
Looking further ahead, by 2035 Asian cities will in aggregate have overtaken North
American and European cities. Four Chinese cities will have entered the top-ten, but New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles and London will remain the world’s largest by GDP.
find out more. Global cities GDP growth, 2020-2035. Size of city in 2035 shown by size of circle.
Chart 1 Emerging economy cities see rapid growth to 2035, but few break into the top level in terms of scale of GDP.
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Contact: Stephen Adams | sadams@oxfordeconomics.com