New York City is the most influential city in the world

My opponent breaks his argument into several parts, economics, immigration, and corporate residence. We shall address each of these individually. 1) Economics New York does rank high when it comes to GDP, however we need to look at two different aspects for this. First, economic power is more than simply GDP, and second, how economic power translates into influence and if that is present in NYC. First, we can see that NYC is not doing as well as my opponent would like to believe. The unemployment rate is steadily rising, while the national is on a downward trend [1]. Since Feb 2010, the US has created over 4.6 million private sector jobs [2], while NYC, in that same time has lost almost 60,000 jobs [1]. Meanwhile, tied to both the jobs and the economy in general, banks, as well as other businesses, are fleeing NYC for better places [3]. We can see that while NYC has a very large economy, it is not very stable and that lack of stability will greatly limit whatever influence it may have. Economic power translate to influence because money can be used to change people's minds. However, if you have a shaky economic that can and does leave when times are tough, the ability to have any long term influence is reduced. This can partially be seen that, despite several attempts, NYC has never made it past the first round of the final bid to get any Olympic event. The closest they got was for the 2012 summer [4], while several other US cities have hosted the Olympics. 2) Immigration This also has two major flaws. First, is that Americans are typically not that big on immigration [5] as we have always been fairly dissatisfied with the current level of immigration. Second, we can trace everyone back to Africa, but that does not mean that Africa has a lot of influence. Simply being a check-in point does not grant NYC any real influence. 3) Corporate Residence My opponent points out that various powerful and influential companies reside in NYC. As addressed in the economics section, companies will leave NYC pretty quickly if the grass is greener elsewhere. Many of these companies may exist in NYC, but they hold no real commitment or loyalty to NYC, so the city does not get a lot of influence from them. We can see that NYC does have a deal of influence around the world, but it is not nearly as powerful as some may have believed. We can show several cases of cities being more influential, but I shall focus only on one, the Vatican City [6]. While this is one of the smallest "cities" in the world, its influence spans the entire globe. Being a religious center for one of the most prominent religions in the world, it is not hard to see how it can directly and indirectly influence so many. And while it does not have a powerful economy, it does have a loyalty and dedication that companies will never hold, which allows its influence to cover those very companies which claim to have such a powerful influence with NYC. Articles from wikileaks show just how wide and how deep the influence of this city can go [7]. Vatican City currently has diplomats in 178 countries, second in the world behind only the US (despite having 1/400,000 the population). They effect elections all over the world and even down to state governments. They are an organization that is nothing other than influence. If we try to compare the two side by side, there is no comparison. If we talk about GDP and money flow, sure, NYC puts up some intense numbers, but when it comes down to influence (as this debate is about), NYC doesn't come close. Other cities, such as Mecca, Jerusalem, and Washington DC all hold more global influence than NYC. [1] . http://data.bls.gov... [2] . http://data.bls.gov... [3] . http://www.businessweek.com... [4] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] . http://www.gallup.com... [6] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [7] . http://www.cogwriter.com...