Despite all the drama that Nairobi county has witnessed with its governors one entangled in graft cases, governor Evans Kidero and Mike Mbuvi Sonko with matatu rules that drove city dwellers to the edge, there is apparently an outstanding quality of the city that reigns it as a world champion.
Nairobi has been named among the top 20 most dynamic cities in the world by Citi Research. The Kenyan capital is the only city outside of Asia Pacific ranked among the top 20.
The other African city in JLL’s City Momentum Index is Lagos, Nigeria which came in at position 25.
“Only one city outside of Asia Pacific, Nairobi, ranks in the top 20 most dynamic cities in the globe – and even in Nairobi there is a strong Asian influence, with significant amounts of investment from China, particularly focused on infrastructure projects,” says Jeremy Kelly, Research Director at JLL.
He says although momentum in the global economy appears to have peaked, there are still many cities in the world where real estate and economic growth continue to be robust.
“At the time when the World Economic Forum is examining globalisation 4.0, JLL’s City Momentum Index, now in its sixth iteration, focuses on momentum for the world’s most commercially active cities,” adds Kelly.
Tracking a range of socioeconomic and commercial real-estate indicators to identify attributes for success over the short term, the City Momentum Index ranked 131 major established and emerging business hubs across the globe to identify the urban economies and real-estate markets that are currently undergoing the most rapid expansion.
This year’s rankings find the fastest urban growth continuing to shift away from the West to the East. Asia Pacific is home to 19 of the top 20 cities in this year’s index, and overall, Indian and Chinese cities dominate the rankings, accounting for three-quarters of the top 20.