Miami ranked #77 of 250 cities on “future-ready” list, lagging partly because of traffic
By Doreen Hemlock
Miami ranks among a middle tier of cities advancing toward “future-ready” but not among the world’s best-in-class, bogged down by challenges including income inequality, affordable housing, climate change and traffic, according to a new study of 250 urban areas around the globe.
The Magic City comes in #77 on the list, below the top 50 cities already deemed to be “future-ready,” with #1 the best. Research firm ThoughtLab ranked the cities, based on a global survey it conducted in mid-2024 and on secondary data crowd-sourced by Numbeo about quality-of-life issues. Contributing to Miami’s mid-range post: relatively low scores in Numbeo’s database in areas such as pollution, safety, healthcare and traffic.
“One of Miami’s biggest challenges with transportation is finding the funding to improve it, and they are using state and federal funding and private-public partnerships to pay for improvements whenever they can,” said Lou Celi, CEO of ThoughtLab, which found sponsors for its study in global heavyweights including Deloitte, FTI Consulting, GM, Intel, Intron and ServiceNow.
The new report, titled “From Future Vision to Urban Reality,” defines “future-ready” cities as those “more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive” and working to improve in those fields. ThoughtLab released a report on the same subject in 2022, and this year, studied how cities have advanced in their efforts.
Among the 50 cities now deemed “future-ready” are places large and small: Chicago, New York and Toronto in North America; Dublin, Warsaw and Valencia in Europe; Beijing, Taipei and Tokyo in Asia; Buenos Aires, Quito and Curitiba in Latin America; and Abu Dhabi, Istanbul and Tehran in the Middle East, to name a dozen.
Miami ranks in the second-tier “progressing” to become “future-ready,” along with Atlanta, Bangkok, Charlotte, Dubai, El Paso, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Las Vegas, Mexico City, Nashville, Orlando, Quebec, Sao Paulo, Tampa, and Vancouver, among others.
Miami is advancing, thanks to “significant” progress in areas including urban infrastructure, citizen living and health. Yet the city has made only “moderate progress” in transport and environment, and “little” progress on resilience, safety and security, Celi told RefreshMiami.com.
“Building resilience is critical but challenging for Miami. The city faces major stresses around technological and cybersecurity risks; supply-chain disruptions; socio-economic dislocations, such as inequality; aging infrastructure; and health and safety issues,” Celi said. Miami is progressing faster than many cities in digitizing services, such voter registration, driver licenses and payments. “But it is behind other cities in the use of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and other emerging technologies.”
Worldwide, the report found that climate change stands out as the most pressing urban challenge, followed by public health, and housing shortages. Since 2022, many cities face worsening problems of inadequate transportation and infrastructure. With conflicts in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Africa displacing more than 100 million people, many also grapple with issues of refugee and immigrant influx. Such cities as Berlin, Athens, Stockholm, Melbourne, and Chicago are among the best in fostering integration, education, and social support for newcomers, the research found.
To become “future-ready,” the researchers suggest six steps for city operations. They are: put people at the center of strategies; create a frictionless experience for citizens, including digitizing services; build productive, skilled, and diverse workforces; diversify funding and business models; integrate innovation ecosystems into operations, including partnerships with tech startups; and take a cross-departmental, holistic approach, by looking at homelessness, for instance, jointly through social services, police, housing, workforce development and other areas. Those steps require solid investment in technology.
For the complete report, including case studies, see https://thoughtlabgroup.com/from-future-vision-to-reality/
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