Current Issues Note 31: City ranking indices - handle with care

Ranking indices are great agents for generating interest and stimulating debate. Indices can serve to rally public opinion and to focus minds on solving problems. But because an index must force a standard measure upon very different places, it cannot take account of the many factors that make different cities unique from one another. The contextual factors that indices leave out, whether the result of history, culture, or otherwise, are very important to understand in order to correctly interpret the rankings.