Will the true inclusive city rise? Mapping the strengths and weaknesses of the city ranking systems

Abstract

Ranking cities is considered an effective instrument to rate and qualify the specific image of cities and encourage them to define and improve sustainable development strategies, but it has also been criticized for generating biased outcomes. Recently, the number of rankings for inclusive cities is rising, in fact along with growing investments in inclusive city projects and initiatives. The inclusive city rankings have both the strength to enhance lesson-drawing and self-improvement and the weakness to exacerbate competition among un-equals. In this article, nine different ranking systems for assessing urban inclusion are scrutinized and compared. Based on relevant theory regarding inclusive urban development and ranking systems, a methodology to compare and assess ranking systems is established, building on different quality aspects. The findings indicate that although for most ranking systems much essential information to understand how they produce results can be retrieved, motivations for generating these inclusive city rankings can be moral, utilitarian, or a combination of both, and that evaluation methods and dissemination of the results sometimes lack transparency and timeliness. Some metrics are incomplete and/or biased toward specific dimensions and indicators. The consistency across the ranking systems in producing the best-performing cities is much stronger than that of the worst-performing cities. Moreover, an obvious developed-developing gap was observed in the sense that most high performers are in Europe and to a lesser extent Nord-America, while the bottom 25 % are primarily in developing countries. Finally, suggestions are given to make methodologies for inclusive ranking systems more transparent, comprehensive and less biased.