India's economic growth might be considered by some as enviable but it is highly unlikely that the same can be said of our cities.

The best rank in a list of 65 cities across the world that an Indian city has managed is 45 - Delhi, followed by Mumbai at 46. Bangalore and Kolkata are at the fag end at 58 and 63 respectively.

New York tops the worlwide ranking of cities in the survey conducted by US Foreign Policy magazine in collaboration with A T Kearney and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Tokyo is the top-ranking Asian city at number 3.

The Indian cities' positions may be more than just a dampener as the magazine suggests that the trade and economic growth could soon be very specific to cities and not countries. According to the report, "The 21st century will not be dominated by America or China, Brazil or India, but by the cities of the world.”

"The cities rather than states are becoming the islands of governance on which the future world order will be built," the report titled ‘Metropolis Now: The Global Cities Index 2010’ added. The survey figures in September/October issue of Foreign Policy issue.

Parag Khanna, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation – US think tank wrote in the Foreign Policy that the age of nations is over and the new urban age has begun. “This new world of cities won't obey the same rules as the old compact of nations; they will write their own opportunistic codes of conduct, animated by the need for efficiency, connectivity, and security above all else,” Khanna added.

China’s capital Beijing may have been placed at 15 even with the magazine lauding the country’s efforts toward urbanisation as systematic but the whole rankings have lbrought much embarassment to India.

Richard Dobbs, director of the McKinsey Global Institute writing in the same issue of the Foreign Policy magazine said, “New Delhi, meanwhile, hasn't done enough to prepare.” Dobbs further wrote, “So while China has embraced a future of office parks and high-speed rail, India is just waking up to its new urban reality.”

This is not a revelation for Indian cities. Last month when Singapore-based Centre for Liveable Cities ranked 64 cities across the world, none of the six Indian cities Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Pune — found a place in the top 20, either in the global or the Asian list.

In evaluating the cities, the foreign policy survey took note of how much sway a city has over what happens beyond its own borders - its influence on and integration with global markets, culture, and innovation. Not only that but cities were also evaluated ‘how many Fortune Global 500 company headquarters were in a city to the size of its capital markets and the flow of goods through its airports and ports, as well as factors such as the number of embassies, think tanks, political organizations, and museums.’ 

India is on the path of massive urbanisation as acknowledged in the recent McKinsey & Company’s report which had predicted, “The urban population in the country is expected to grow from 340 million in 2008 to 590 million by 2030.” This is expected to put a huge pressure on infrastructure of the Indian cities.

Dobbs also wrote that India’s urban spending, meanwhile, is already very low by international standards. McKinsey had warned recently, “If India continues to invest in urban infrastructure at its current rate—very low by international comparison—gridlock and urban decay will result.”

However compared to Indian big cities, most of the cities of developed countries are ranked very high. “Paris and Hong Kong have been ranked fourth and fifth respectively, while Chicago has been placed at sixth spot, followed by Los Angeles (7), Singapore (8), Sydney (9), Seoul (10), Brussels (11), San Francisco (12), Washington (13) and Toronto (14),” the Foreign Policy survey noted.

The magazine also analysed that size alone does not make a 'Global City'. In fact, many big cities such as Karachi (60), Lagos (59) and Kolkata (63), barely make the list of 65 top cities with over one million population.