Measuring world city formation – The case of Shanghai

One of the important issues related to world cities studies is the lack of systematic measurement of the formation of world cities. Such a measurement technique would be a useful tool for cities aspiring to attain world city status, especially those cities in Pacific Asia, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, and Shanghai. This paper approaches this task by devising a measurement methodology based on quantifiable indicators to generate a World City Index and then uses Shanghai as a case study to test how the city stands compared to 32 current and potential world cities.