[URBAN NOTE] "Brexit threatens London's status as 'best city in the world' — even if nothing changes

[rfmcdonald]

Lianna Brinded's Business Insider article makes a point that is all the more sadly ironic on account of London's mostly anti-Brexit vote in the recent referendum.

PwC, in collaboration with BAV Consulting, surveyed a group of 5,200 people from 16 countries about where they believe the best cities in the world to be.

The demographic was made up of "an equal number of business decision makers, informed elites, and other general population adults over 18 years of age."

London hit the number one spot in the ranking of 30 best cities in the world after the respondents scored the capital highly across 40 metrics, which included infrastructure, influence in terms of economics, politics, as well as culture, entertainment, and great food.

Matthew Lieberman, a director at PwC, told BI that Brexit could damage the perception of London as an open city and this could have a negative impact on the country overall.

"London scores number one in the metric 'connected to the rest of the world,' number two in political influence and number two in being a leader; these attributes are contributing to London’s position as the number one city overall – but they could foreseeably be impacted by Brexit," said Lieberman.

"We’ll have to see if it manages to keep the same ranking next year, or if, due to Brexit, we see a slip. We do not currently have empirical data on this, but based on judgment and anecdotal evidence, we would presume that there’s still a lot of uncertainty and perceptions are in flux."