San Franciscans have a reason to wear a little smug smile this week: San Francisco just earned the distinction of the #12 city in the world according to a recent ranking. That’s a (startlingly) high position and gives us cause to feel some pride. The only U.S. city that ranked higher on the list was New York at second place, just behind London in first place and ahead of Paris in third.
The major U.S. hubs that fall behind us are Los Angeles (at #14), Chicago (#17) and Miami (#23); worldwide, SF bests revered cities like Vienna (#18), Montreal (#35), Beijing (#36), Lisbon (#57) and Sao Paulo (#75).
The World’s Best Cities list was just released by marketing and branding company Resonance, which looks at areas with a population of one million or more to then rank the top 100 cities. To do that, the company uses information from Google, Tripadvisor and Instagram, comparing factors that will typically draw a visitor aged 25 to 44 to come spend money in town and maybe even start up a business.
Those comparison points specifically corresponded to livability, lovability and prosperity—everything from how many trees shade the town to the percentage of affordable housing, from the number of nightlife spots and restaurants to how many Fortune 500 companies are headquartered there. Russian cities have been omitted from this annual list since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The list includes a brief rundown of how and why each city earned its ranking. For San Francisco, the list called us the “golden city” and “everyone’s favorite city” but also referenced our being “deeply wounded by the addiction crisis, a lack of affordable housing and violence unimaginable a few years ago.” Yep: nailed it.
San Francisco’s business ecosystem earned a #1 ranking (like, #1 in the world… I know, our jaws dropped too) while educational attainment earned a #2 ranking (jaws still gaping).
We’re third in the nation for the number of millionaires living here (just behind New York and Tokyo). There were 285,000 millionaires living in SF in 2022 (according to the 2023 World’s Wealthiest Cities Report), so given that our population is 4,692,000, San Francisco consists of 6 percent millionaires… yay? Guess that Gold Rush money stuck around.
The report also noted the launch of “more moderate political movements” (you don’t say) and movements forward for local journalism and the business community. San Francisco is “the global home of artificial intelligence,” with AI companies taking over lots of that pandemic-emptied office space, like within the Transamerica Pyramid with its $1 billion renovation. Finally, our bike and pedestrian infrastructure plans got some applause.
Here is the full list of World’s Best Cities:
1. London
2. New York
3. Paris
4. Tokyo
5. Singapore
6. Rome
7. Madrid
8. Barcelona
9. Berlin
10. Sydney
11. Amsterdam
12. San Francisco
13. Dubai
14. Los Angeles
15. Toronto
16. Seoul
17. Chicago
18. Vienna
19. Seattle
20. Milan
21. Boston
22. Vancouver
23. Miami
24. Stockholm
25. Melbourne
26. Oslo
27. Munich
28. Istanbul
29. Las Vegas
30. Helsinki
31. Atlanta
32. Bangkok
33. Prague
34. Washington, D.C.
35. Montreal
36. Beijing
37. Orlando
38. St. Louis
39. Portland
40. Houston
41. Dublin
42. Osaka
43. Philadelphia
44. Denver
45. Copenhagen
46. San Diego
47. Auckland
48. Frankfurt
49. Zurich
50. Kuala Lumpur
51. Minneapolis
52. Ottawa
53. Austin
54. Calgary
55. Dallas
56. Brussels
57. Lisbon
58. Honolulu
59. Detroit
60. Krakow
61. Shanghai
62. San Jose
63. New Orleans
64. Nashville
65. Edmonton
66. Salt Lake City
67. Baltimore
68. Bordeaux
69. Gothenburg
70. Cleveland
71. Valencia
72. Glasgow
73. Doha
74. Warsaw
75. Sao Paulo
76. Taipei
77. Tucson
78. Pittsburgh
79. Charlotte
80. Lyon
81. Nagoya
82. Porto
83. Perth
84. Bilbao
85. Cape Town
86. Sapporo
87. Athens
88. Hamburg
89. Phoenix
90. Brisbane
91. Tampa
92. Naples
93. Richmond
94. Birmingham
95. Raleigh
96. Rochester
97. Hong Kong
98. Nantes
99. Toulouse
100. Rio de Janeiro