London, the Global City

Josef Joffe

Josef Joffe is editor of Die Zeit in Hamburg, an ancient rival of Berlin, as well as Senior Fellow at the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies and Abramowitz Fellow at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University. Hence, his real pitch is for Silicon Valley.

Updated September 12, 2011, 11:52 AM

LondonSang Tan/Associated Press The London skyline.

Hemingway would probably hang out in Key West or in Ketchum, where he took his life -- his depression sharpened by the the conviction that no place in Europe was hipper than Idaho.

What makes cities great? It is always the same combination of wealth and power, dynamism and freedom which draws talent and ambition from all over the world. This makes for a critical mass of people who create, invent and break the mold.

By that token, New York, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley (which is really a city of 50 miles in length) share First Prize. Amsterdam used to play that role in the 17th century, Paris in the 18th century, and Berlin during its golden age from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the rise of Hitler in 1933.

Today, Amsterdam, Paris and Rome are just beautiful and highly livable cities (if you have the money).

Today, Amsterdam, Paris and Rome are just beautiful and highly livable cities (if you have the money), but no magnets. Neither is Berlin, though it draws the young from all over Germany and Europe because rents are so cheap. But rents are low because the city's economy doesn't generate wealth. It has no banking or industry to speak of, and about two-fifths of the population live off the government.

So what's left in Europe? By way of elimination, it is London -- Europe's global city, in the way New York, L.A. and Mountain View are global cities. London has the money (coming mainly from financial services). It is a city of a myriad nationality. It leaves you alone even as it offers a thousand points of distraction. Though no longer the capital of an empire, London draws the best and the brightest from all over the world -- which highlights another critical condition: language.

When Paris was queen in the 18th and 19th century, every educated person in Europe spoke French, a trait that lasted into the 20th century. Today, everybody speaks English, or at least Bad English, which is the world's fastest growing language. But who now has a command of German, let alone Dutch or Italian? If the rest of the world ever takes to Chinese as it has taken to English, Shanghai might join the roster. But the 3,000 signs of Chinese are a bit harder to master than the 26 letters of the English alphabet.

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Topics: Culture, Europe, World

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