Of the world’s 900 major cities, 586 will experience slower annual growth in 2020–2021 than in the previous five years. The current slowdown in global trade is hurting many manufacturing-intensive cities, while others are affected by weaker growth in demand for traded services, forecasts Oxford Economics in its Global Cities Outlook.
Among the markets set to show the most marked slowdowns is San Jose/Silicon Valley. In North America, cities on the West Coast and in the South have generally been setting the pace in recent years, but in the next two years Oxford Economics forecasts they will outperform other large cities by much smaller margins than in the past.
In Europe, eastern cities will continue to set the pace. London, having seen its growth fall sharply given the uncertainty around Brexit, should see a modest improvement in the next two years, performing broadly in line with other major cities, where once it easily outperformed.
Chinese cities