Planning on the whole has a long-term focus, and rankings and rating are too immediate to be significant without a clear and persuasive account of cause and effect. We should develop far more sophisticated systematic ways and reliable ways to do so. These ratings are done by different magazines and they have to be different each year or they won't be able to sell them the next year. They change because they have to change. And these ratings are invented in part for the reason of selling magazines so that they can sell advertising.
Humans have a tendency to simplify complex situations and it's worth asking about that.
One of the more popular ratings is that of schools. The US News and World Report has propelled itself into a separate publication and it would be interesting to see what the impact is on the schools. You haven't talked much about the physical form and the physical image of the city.