We may be watching the end of Western civilization’s growth, if a new study from the Brookings Global MetroMonitor is any indicator. According to Brookings, the top 50 fastest-growing cities, ranked by GDP per capita, are located in Asia, except for Perth in Australia. 18 of those cities are in China.
At the bottom was Europe. 42 of the bottom fifty were in the European Union. The top ten fastest growing cities on the planet are all in China. In order:
- Wuhan
- Chongqing
- Shenyang
- Changsha
- Changchun
- Nanning
- Hefei
- Xi’an
- Dalian
- Chengdu
The bottom ten are all in Europe, except for Dubai. They’re largely concentrated in rapidly-aging Italy:
- Athens
- Lisbon
- Verona
- Porto
- Bologna
- Turin
- Florence
- Milan
- Dubai
- Valencia
This is no shock. GDP is largely reliant on population growth and economic dynamism, neither of which is present in the dying European Union. No wonder the US Chamber of Commerce has labeled Europe “in slow decline.”
The problem isn’t restricted to the Europeans. A full 90 percent of the slowest-growing metros overall are in Western Europe and North America. 75 percent of the fast-growing metros overall are in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. The only American cities in the top 50 in growth are San Jose, California (46th) and Houston, Texas (40th).
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