City Mayors: News from cities around the world

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Mayors from The Americas, Europe. Asia, Australia and Africa are competing for the annual World Mayor Award. More

City Mayors ranks the world’s largest as well as richest cities and urban areas. It also ranks the cities in individual countries, and provides a list of the capital cities of some 200 sovereign countries. More

City Mayors lists and features urban events, conferences and conventions aimed at urban decision makers and those with an interst in cities worldwide. More

City Mayors reports political events, analyses the issues and depicts the main players. More

City Mayors describes and explains the structures and workings of local government in Europe, The Americas, Asia, Australia and Africa. More

City Mayors profiles city leaders from around the world and questions them about their achievements, policies and aims. More

City Mayors deals with economic and investment issues affecting towns and cities. More

City Mayors reports on how business developments impact on cities and examines cooperation between cities and the private sector. More

City Mayors describes and explains financial issues affecting local government. More

City Mayors reports urban environmental developments and examines the challenges faced by cities worldwide. More

City Mayors reports on and discusses urban development issues in developed and developing countries. More

City Mayors reports on developments in urban society and behaviour and reviews relevant research. More

City Mayors deals with urban transport issues in developed and developing countries and features the world’s greatest metro systems. More

City Mayors examines education issues and policies affecting children and adults in urban areas. More

City Mayors investigates health issues affecting urban areas with an emphasis on health in cities in developing countries. More

City Mayors examines the contributions history and culture make to urban society and environment. More

City Mayors examines the importance of urban tourism to city economies. More

City Mayors describes the history, architecture and politics of the greatest city halls in the world. More

City Mayors invites readers to write short stories about people in cities around the world. More

City Mayors questions those who govern the world’s cities and talks to men and women who contribute to urban society and environment. More

City Mayors profiles national and international organisations representing cities as well as those dealing with urban issues. More

City Mayors reports on major national and international sporting events and their impact on cities. More

City Mayors lists cities and city organisations, profiles individual mayors and provides information on hundreds of urban events. More

The largest cities in the
world and their mayors
25 January 2010: The mayors of the world’s twenty largest cities are each responsible for more people than most national prime ministers. For example, London, ranked 20th in the world, has more residents than nations like Paraguay, Denmark, New Zealand or Ireland, and if Karachi, globally the largest city, was a country it would rank above Greece, Portugal or Hungary. The combined population of the world’s eight megacities comfortably exceeds that of Germany. More

John So, Lord Mayor of Melbourne
wins the 2006 World Mayor Award
John So, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, has been elected World Mayor 2006. Runner up in the 2006 World Mayor contest is Job Cohen, Mayor of Amsterdam. In third place is Harrisburg’s long-serving mayor Stephen Reed, while Jejomar Binay, Mayor of Makati City, ranks fourth. Michel Thiollière, Mayor of St Etienne, completes the top five. John So will be presented with the World Mayor Award early in 2007. Previous winners are, in 2004, Edi Rama, Mayor of Tirana and now also leader of Albania's socialist party, and in 2005, Dora Bakoyannis, Mayor of Athens and now Greek foreign minister. More

Mayor Akiba criticises nuclear powers on
60th anniversary of Hiroshima destruction
On the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima’s destruction and the killing of some 100,000 people on 6 August 1945, the city’s Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba called 2005 as the year of succession, awakening and determination. The Mayor bitterly criticised countries like the US and North Korea for further developing nuclear arms. Mr Akiba also blamed today’s nuclear powers for the collapse of an international conference re-evaluating the Nuclear Non proliferation Treaty (NPT). “The collapse of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty review conference showed that countries with nuclear weapons are not listening to the majority of the world's citizens, who want these monstrous weapons eliminated,” the Mayor said. Full Peace Declaration

EIU survey:
Vancouver, Melbourne and Vienna
named world’s most liveable cities
Vancouver, Melbourne and Vienna are the world ‘best’ cities to live and visit according to a new survey the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). Vancouver, on the Canadian Pacific coast, is credited with low crime, good infrastructure and virtually no threats of terrorist attacks. Jon Copestake, editor of the EIU survey on liveability said that in the current global political climate, it was no surprise that the most desirable destinations were those with a lower perceived threat of terrorism. More

Mercer survey:
Swiss cities offer the best quality of life while
Luxembourg has been named the safest city
The Swiss cities of Geneva and Zurich offer the best quality of life according to research published by Mercer Consulting on 15 March 2005. Vancouver (Canada) is placed third, followed Vienna (Austria) and Frankfurt (Germany). Cities in Europe, New Zealand, and Australia continue to rank highly. Munich and Düsseldorf both move up the rankings, from 10th and 12th place respectively, to share joint 5th place with Frankfurt. Munich’s rise is due to more efficient waste removal systems and better housing for expatriates, while Düsseldorf’s transport and standards of international schooling have improved. More

Mercer survey:
Tokyo is most expensive city in the world
with London being the costliest in Europe
For the third year running, Japan’s capital Tokyo is the world’s most expensive city. Osaka, the country’s third-largest city, is in second place. London, which occupied the number two spot in 2004, is placed third in 2005, followed by Moscow, which also drops one place. Asuncion in Paraguay is the least expensive city in the world. More

UBS survey:
London is the most expensive city in the world
while Swiss cities are home to highest earners
London is the most expensive city in the world due to the UK capital’s high cost of renting accommodation. If rents are excluded, Oslo, Copenhagen, Tokyo and Zurich are among the most costly cities in the world. Meanwhile, as the US dollar has lost value, US cities have become cheaper since 2003. The highest gross wages are paid in Scandinavia and Switzerland. The city with the highest gross wage level is now Copenhagen, ahead of Zurich, Basel and Oslo. But owing to higher taxes and social security contributions, the Scandinavian cities have all moved down the rankings on net wages. More

New York, Hong Kong and Paris are home
to world's most expensive shopping streets
New York’s Fifth Avenue, Causeway Bay in Hong Kong and the Champs Elysées are the world’s most expensive shopping streets. New York City shopping streets make up the top three places of the American top ten of most expensive locations. In addition to Fifth Avenue, the city boasts East 57th Street and Madison Avenue as prime retail streets. The European top ten of most expensive shopping streets is dominated by retail locations in London and Paris. More

City and regional governments
ready to help tsunami victims
The Barcelona-based organisation United Cities and Local Governments has called on cities and local government associations across the world to support the international efforts to help the tsunami victims in South and Southeast Asia. Many cities, regional councils and municipal associations have already responded, by offering financial, technical and humanitarian aid. More

Minneapolis named home of
America’s most avid readers
For the second year running, Minneapolis, Minnesota, was named as the most literate city in the US. The study, which was carried out by Professor John Miller of the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater, measured not people’s ability to read but the extent of them actually doing so. While ‘bookish’ cities like Seattle, Boston and San Francisco occupy top-ten places, New York City, America’s capital of art and literature, is only placed 49th. More

Urban population is growing
by one million people a week
The world’s urban population will grow from 2.86 billion in 2000 to 4.98 billion by 2030, of which high-income countries will account for only 28 million out of the expected increase of 2.12 billion. The world’s annual urban growth rate is projected at 1.8 per cent in contrast to the rural growth rate of 0.1 per cent and about 60 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities. More

Swiss cities offer the best quality of life while
Calgary has been named the healthiest city
The Swiss cities of Zurich and Geneva offer the best quality of life in the world according to research published by Mercer Consulting on 1 March 2004. Vancouver, placed second in 2003, dropped to third place. Geneva’s progress is attributed to the city’s schools, where standards of education, both in public and private schools, are now rated among the best in the world. Vienna shares third place with Vancouver, while Auckland, Bern, Copenhagen, Frankfurt and Sydney are joint fifth. US cities have slipped in the 2004 rankings as tighter restrictions have been imposed on entry to the country. More

FCM report warns of erosion of
quality of life in Canadian cities
The quality of life in Canada’s cities is at risk, according to a report produced by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM). It finds that, despite general improvements in rates of post-secondary education, employment growth and home-ownership, quality of life deteriorated for a growing number of people during the 1990s. In addition, improvements in income and poverty rates since 1996 have been offset by a growing income gap, housing affordability problems and changes to social programs. More

Chirac asks cities to respect everyone’s
origins, beliefs, traditions and aspirations
French President Jacques Chirac characterised the city as the cradle of civilisation, the birthplace of democracy, but also the place where violence and injustice wreak the cruellest havoc. After the rapid expansion of industry and urbanisation in the last century, we now face the challenge of achieving sustainable development while handling population and urban expansion. More

Nanjing sets out to protect
its east-west architecture
Riding their bicycles past it every day, Nanjing residents are very familiar with the complex of elegant, old two- and three-storey houses along Zhongshan Avenue, amid a forest of modern structures. They and other buildings completed after the First Opium War (1840-42) in the capital of East China's Jiangsu Province, especially those built when Nanjing served as the national capital from 1912 to 1949, are an important and unique part of the architectural history of China. More

Edi Rama: artist, reformer
and Mayor of Tirana
Edi Rama’s journey to the mayor’s office in Tirana, the capital of Albania, arguably began in what most would call a raw and rough-and-tumble way inasmuch as, even though he, while still teaching at the Albanian Academy of Arts – admittedly a site of political ferment after the termination of communism and the birth of the Democratic Party in 1990 – had quickly left what he considered a bogus movement, and was doing no more than criticize both the socialists and the democrats in print, someone showed how seriously they took that by lying in wait for him in front of his home and beating him nearly to death. More

Hunger and homelessness
still on the rise in US cities
Poverty continued to rise in major US cities during 2003, according to the latest US Conference of Mayors-Sodexho Hunger and Homelessness Survey, published in December 2003. As the overall economy remained weak, requests for emergency food assistance increased by an average of 17 per cent during 2003, and requests for emergency shelter assistance increased by an average of 13 per cent in the 25 cities the survey surveyed. More

South American cities spearhead
development of direct democracy
At a time when many ordinary people in nominally democratic countries feel themselves bereft, in practice if not in theory, of influence in the political processes of their communities, cities in Europe and South America are seeking to rediscover the meaning of local democracy...More than ten years ago the city of Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, began an innovative experiment that gave community input a crucial role in municipal management. More

Sex and marriage in
the City of Chicago
While people of previous generations tended to marry shortly after entering the workforce and remained married to the same partner, today’s marriages occur later in life and are often briefer, requiring a new dynamic in the ways in which people meet and form relationships. The new sexual markets operate differently for men and women, and are defined according to racial group, neighborhood and sexual orientation. More

Hamburg leads German location index
but southern states are catching up
Germany’s northern city state of Hamburg remains on top of the current Bertelsmann ranking of German business locations. The east German states of Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt occupy the bottom two places More

Tacoma named as the
most stressful US city
Tacoma, Washington, a city of some 195,000 people and situated 50 kilometres south of Seattle, ranks as the most stressful city of the 100 largest metro areas. Galveston, Texas, earns the dubious honour in the mid-size category, and Yuba City, California, is the most stressful among the smallest metro areas. On the brighter side, New York State capital Albany is the least stressful large metro area, while Provo, Utah, anchors the top spot among the mid-size cities. Among the smallest metro areas, Bismarck, North Dakota. in number one in a low-stress environment. More

Scandinavian countries score best
in international corruption index
"Rich countries must provide practical support to developing country governments that demonstrate the political will to curb corruption. In addition, those countries starting with a high degree of corruption should not be penalised, since they are in the most urgent need of support." More

Southern German cities are
winning the battle for people
The all-time low number of births is having some unusual repercussions: Germany’s regional capitals are actually competing for people! Cities in the south and west of the country are doing well, whereas cities in the east and north are less fortunate. More