The 30 Fastest Cities To Work, Live, and Play

Fast Company magazine has selected 30 urban centers that are shaping our future. The list includes creative-class meccas, R&D hot spots, even cities so fast they’re scary. It calls them Fast Cities. They are cauldrons of creativity where the most important ideas and the organizations of tomorrow are centered. They attract the best and brightest. They are great places to work and live.

In a world where we can now work anywhere, we’re tending to concentrate in fewer and fewer places.Smart people are choosing to live near smart people.

says Carol Colletta, president of CEOs for Cities, an advocacy group.

What makes a city fast? It starts with opportunity — a culture that nurtures creative action and game-changing enterprise. It’s where the number of patents filed is high, or where the high-tech sector is expanding. These cities invest in physical, cultural, and intellectual infrastructure that will sustain growth. Finally, fast cities are full of highly creative people. Here are the 30 fastest cities that are shaping the future of the world.

Figure 1 – The World’s 30 Fastest Cities To Work, Live, And Play

The cities are been presenting in nine categories, from Creative-Class Meccas to Green Leaders. There are also 20 locales on the verge of Fast City status, plus 5 Slow Cities–and 5 too fast for their own good.

Figure 2 – Map: The Top 30 Cities for Business

The research was based on data from Carnegie Mellon assistant professor Kevin Stolarick, the numbers guru behind Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class, which helped define what makes great cities tick. It was also relied on CEOs for Cities’ CityVitals survey; sustainability data from SustainLane; and insights from the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto.

Sources

• Fast Cities 2007 list
• Too-Fast Cities
• Slow Cities
• Cities On The Verge
• SlideShow: The World’s 30 Fastest Cities To Work, Live, And Play
• Interactive Map: The Top 30 Cities for Business
• Interactive Map: Readers’ Favorite Fast Cities

Via Richard Florida and The Creative Class Exchange