To define competition for world-city status as anything other than ferociously intense is gross understatement. A blue-ribbon Manhattan business advisory group frets that an open parking lot gives New York a shabby blotch on its face and might discourage incoming global business from settling.
Common factors define world cities.
All these functions are heavily clustered in the central areas, thus the economic health of the central area determines to an ever greater degree the economic health of the surrounding region. Increasingly, however, other functions are being decentralized. Mass production, in particular, is deserting these higher-order cities because that is where the highest costs are. The old-style manufacturing that remains largely serves the local market and the international service industries in the centre. The lure for these employees is quality entertainment and cultural attractions, good schools, low crime, a clean environment and comparative high-market retailing.