Two cities which both claim the title. Both similarly ranked in many, many areas.
Which do you choose, and why? Cite if possible, or simply rant/praise if you prefer.
(Oh, crap. Could a mod change “Lonkdon” to “London” in the poll? Thanks!)
While this will, of course, end up being people voting for “their city” (not that that matters - it’s just a bit of fun), it seems New York itself feels that London is the capital of the world.
Guess which way I voted! I’ll probably be the only one, though.
London
(this poll is probably going to reflect the proportion of Brits to Americans on the forum.)
London, the architecture seals it for me, New York is too samey and new. I think London has benefited from bombings and fires over the last thousand years or so.
That’s an … interesting perspective.
I’m a Brit (well, Scottish, but for you folks across the pond I’ll translate it to Brit!) and I voted for New York. Maybe it just seems more exotic, being overseas, than our dirty busy little London.
Ah!..from an architectural point of view of course.
London used to be the capital of the world. So did Paris, Rome, Venice, and Constantinople. But the current capital of the world is New York City. I’m guessing the next capital will be Shanghai.
What does “so good they named it twice” mean?
New York, New York (city, state)
No question, it’s New York. The presence of the United Nations makes it definite.
I voted for London, just because they have Harrods.
In support of London, I call on this page on Wikipedia which lists four indexes (indices?):
- Global Financial Centres Index
- International Financial Centers Development Index
- Forbes
- Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index
Three of the four list London first; one lists New York.
I think London has a business advantage in terms of location and time zones. Obviously it’s in Europe while New York is in North America. Similar-sized markets, so that’s about a wash. But London is a bit closer to east Asia, much closer to the Middle East, and generally closer to the up-and-coming “BRICS” countries.
Going on population density alone (map), you’d probably pick somewhere like Bombay or Dubai as a site for a world capital. Per-capita GDP might skew your choice in a westerly direction, though.
Can’t be London. They drive on the left side of the road… someone could get killed!
London.
See also Heathrow traffic vs JFK traffic figures (although Beijing has both beat there for the past couple years).
Gotta pick a neutral place with some meaning to many people.
Like Jerusalem 
A very quick glance through Wikipedia, reveals one could also cite The West End vs. Broadway, international air traffic, number of airports, size of subway system, number of world heritage sites, tourism (wow - didn’t realise London was #1 in the world in that!), and number of times hosted Olympics, in addition to the clear financial world capital cited earlier.
London’s definitely a very strong contender.
I’d pick Moose Jaw, just to be contrary.
Meh. Neither’s a world leader on that metric. Both have a LOT of poor people. There are lots of places with much higher per capita GDP. I don’t think we can use that as a factor.