Bengaluru: In the roller-coaster that life is, India’s IT capital Bengaluru zoomed from being ‘unsafe’ to being ‘the most dynamic city in the world’ in the first three weeks of this year.
And in doing so, Bengaluru has beaten the original Silicon Valley, not to mention China’s Shanghai and even Boston. Closely competing in the world’s top ten dynamic cities is Hyderabad, at spot 5: The decade-old rivalry between the two IT capitals in the country seems to have revived all over again. And while Delhi figures in the top 30 cities, smog seems to have bogged down the city’s reputation.
The rankings are based on parameters such as population, technology and R&D, connectivity, output and corporate activity, education, and real estate investment. These are rankings released by real estate consultancy firm James Lang Laselle at the World Economic Forum in Davos and as the firm rightly says, “They are not what you’d expect.”
To the Karnataka government that’s been battling for brand Bengaluru on different fronts, it has come as a pleasant surprise. “This gives us a boost at the global level – whether it be with collaboration or investments. The pace at which Bengaluru is growing is perhaps responsible for this tag,” IT Minister Priyank Kharge told News18.
JLL says in its report that these cities “integrated change and technology into their DNA.”
Pune, Chennai and Mumbai are other cities in the country to make it to the top 30, in that order. Among the top 30 are also New York San Francisco, Melbourne, Los Angeles and Stockholm.
Liveability is surfacing as an increasingly important driver, as it is key to attracting talent, the report points out. “For example, affordability and space constraints in San Francisco (No. 21) contributed to knocking that city out of the top 20 for the first time and Hong Kong out of the top 30. The environment is also becoming a more critically determining factor in the index. Although in the top 30, Delhi (No. 23) and Beijing (No. 15) were hindered by poor environmental scores,” the report notes.