Richest cities in 2020

More stats from the stats-lover ;) Link

If you look carefully you'll see that Shanghai (16th) and Beijing (29th) have the highest percentage of growth(6.5/6.6%) which isn't surprising to anyone who knows anything about China! Mexico City being 7th though? Wow, that's quite a shocker to me.

Rank	City/Urban area	Country	Est GDP in 2020 in US$bn	Est annual growth 2005-2020
1	Tokyo	Japan	1602	2.0%
2	New York	USA	1561	2.2%
3	Los Angeles	USA	886	2.2%
4	London	UK	708	3.0%
5	Chicago	USA	645	2.3%
6	Paris	France	611	1.9%
7	Mexico City	Mexico	608	4.5%
8	Philadelphia	USA	440	2.3%
9	Osaka/Kobe	Japan	430	1.6%
10	Washington DC	USA	426	2.4%
11	Buenos Aires	Argentina	416	3.6%
12	Boston	USA	413	2.4%
13	Sao Paulo	Brazil	411	4.1%
14	Hong Kong	China	407	3.5%
15	Dallas/Fort Worth	USA	384	2.4%
16	Shanghai	China	360	6.5%
17	Seoul	South Korea	349	3.2%
18	Atlanta	USA	347	2.6%
19	San Francisco/Oakland	USA	346	2.4%
20	Houston	USA	339	2.5%
21	Miami	USA	331	2.4%
22	Toronto	Canada	327	3.0%
23	Moscow	Russia	325	4.0%
24	Mumbai	India	300	6.0%
25	Madrid	Spain	299	3.2%
26	Detroit	USA	287	2.3%
27	Istanbul	Turkey	287	5.2%
28	Seattle	USA	269	2.5%
29	Beijing	China	259	6.6%
30	Metro Manila	Philippines	257	5.9%
31	Rio de Janeiro	Brazil	256	4.1%
32	Sydney	Australia	256	2.7%
33	Jakarta	Indonesia	253	6.5%
34	Delhi	India	229	6.2%
35	Phoenix	USA	228	2.5%
36	Guangzhou	China	227	6.9%
37	Minneapolis	USA	224	2.5%
38	Kolkata	India	224	5.9%
39	San Diego	USA	220	2.4%
40	Singapore	Singapore	218	3.6%
41	Cairo	Egypt	212	5.3%
42	Barcelona	Spain	201	2.4%
43	Melbourne	Australia	200	2.6%
44	Denver	USA	190	2.6%
45	Rome	Italy	187	2.9%
46	Bangkok	Thailand	180	4.8%
47	Montreal	Canada180	180	2.8%
48	Milan	Italy	174	2.8%
49	Tehran	Iran	172	4.5%
50	Riyadh	Saudi Arabia	167	5.0%
51	Pusan	South Korea	165	3.8%
52	Bogotá	Colombia	163	4.3%
53	Santiago	Chile	160	3.8%
54	Monterrey	Mexico	157	4.8%
55	Baltimore	USA	157	2.4%
56	Tel Aviv-Jaffa	Israel	153	3.5%
57	St Petersburg	Russia	151	3.9%
58	St Louis	USA	146	2.5%
59	Tampa/St Petersburg	USA	142	2.5%
60	Johannesburg	South Africa	131	3.4%
61	Lisbon	Portugal	130	3.3%
62	Cleveland	USA	129	2.4%
63	Belo Horizonte	Brazil	129	4.6%
64	Portland	USA	128	2.6%
65	Vienna	Austria	127	2.1%
66	Karachi	Pakistan	127	5.8%
67	Dhaka	Bangladesh	126	6.1%
68	Lima	Peru	123	4.2%
69	Vancouver	Canada	121	2.9%
70	Cape Town	South Africa	121	3.3%
71	Stockholm	Sweden	121	3.2%
72	Guadalajara	Mexico	119	4.6%
73	Pittsburgh	USA	115	2.4%
74	Tianjin	China	112	6.3%
75	Jiddah	Saudi Arabia	111	4.8%
76	Bangalore	India	110	6.2%
77	Dublin	Ireland	99	4.8%
78	Ho Chi Min City	Vietnam	98	6.5%
79	Birmingham	UK	96	2.0%
80	Wuhan	China	96	6.4%
81	Fukuoka	Japan	96	2.0%
82	Manchester	UK	96	2.2%
83	Hyderabad	India	92	6.1%
84	Chennai	India	91	6.0%
85	Athens	Greece	91	1.5%
86	Berlin	Germany	88	1.1%
87	Ankara	Turkey	87	5.0%
88	Chongqing	China	87	6.3%
89	Lyon	France	85	2.8%
90	Turin	Italy	84	2.5%
91	Porto Alegre	Brazil	82	4.3%
92	Brasilia	Brazil	82	5.1%
93	Warsaw	Poland	80	3.5%
94	Ahmadabad	India	78	6.2%
95	Hamburg	Germany	78	2.0%
96	Recife	Brazil	77	4.4%
97	Pune	India	76	6.3%
98	Lagos	Nigeria	76	6.2%
99	Salvador	Salvador	75	4.6%
100	Munich	Germany	73	2.6%

UBS Survey 2008 : World's most expensive cities

Link

Rank	Cities	Index (New York = 100)
1	London	120.2
2	Oslo	112.3
3	Dublin	105.2
4	Copenhagen	102.6
5	New York	100.0
6	Zurich	97.7
7	Geneva	96.0
8	Tokyo	94.4
9	Helsinki	92.8
10	Paris	92.8
11	Luxembourg	91.9
12	Stockholm	90.8
13	Vienna	88.3
14	Amsterdam	86.2
15	Munich	84.9
16	Frankfurt	82.4
17	Sydney	82.2
18	Chicago	81.8
19	Brussels	81.7
20	Milan	81.2
21	Los Angeles	80.8
22	Madrid	80.7
23	Rome	80.5
24	Toronto	80.4
25	Montreal	80.0
26	Barcelona	79.9
27	Nicosia	79.2
28	Lyon	78.5
29	Istanbul	76.6
30	Berlin	76.4
31	Seoul	76.0
32	Lisbon	74.6
33	Miami	73.1
34	Dubai	72.8
35	Hong Kong	72.3
36	Auckland	71.8
37	Moscow	71.2
38	Singapore	70.5
39	Athens	70.0
40	Caracas	68.6
41	Rio de Janeiro	66.5
42	Sao Paulo	64.9
43	Tel Aviv	64.6
44	Warsaw	63.5
45	Tallinn	63.0
46	Budapest	62.0
47	Ljubljana	60.2
48	Santiago de Chile	59.7
49	Taipei	56.4
50	Prague	55.9
51	Riga	54.8
52	Manama	54.8
53	Bucharest	53.7
54	Bratislava	53.5
55	Sofia	52.8
56	Mumbai	49.6
57	Bogota	49.4
58	Mexico City	49.1
59	Vilnius	48.3
60	Kiev	48.0
61	Bangkok	47.2
62	Nairobi	46.3
63	Jakarta	45.9
64	Johannesburg	45.5
65	Beijing	43.4
66	Manila	43.3
67	Shanghai	43.2
68	Delhi	41.4
69	Lima	39.3
70	Buenos Aires	34.4
71	Kuala Lumpur	31.0

Sick of this f***in' sh*t cr*p!

related post

I am sooooo over this dumb stupid immature juvenile crap that's going on. It really is a joke. It really is.

What does Ti-bet seeking independence have to do with the Olympics??? Yes they have China in common but so what?

OK so you have people all over the world (ok, in western countries, which might as well be the 'whole world' given their power and dominance) boycotting the Olympic Games due to China's hu-man rights issues and the thing with Ti-bet.. and OMG... Yes China is pretty bad when it comes with these issues but they are soooo hypocritical. Their countries and leaders are hardly perfect.

So you had the people in Paris and the Olympic torch relay and poor innocent torch bearers being bombarded by angry mobs, and now you have the other side. Poor innocent Westerners living in China being targeting by angry Chinese mobs and boycotting all French/foreign products! ARGH!

Juvenile! Childish! Pathetic! Racist! ignorant crap!

Article from Shanghaiist andf another article.

This makes me soooo angry. It really is a joke.

At the heart of it I just feel sad. Really really sad. The Olympic Games is supposed to bring together the people of the world and unite them in harmony for just 2 weeks every 2/4 years. I don't like watching sport on tv at all but I'll always look forward to watching the Olympics, especially the Opening Ceremony. I feel so happy and so proud that my background is composed of so many different countries and I can't even choose one country over another and in my heart I am cheering them ALL on, because in the end it doesn't matter who wins the most medals, it's that the athletes had their chance to show the world their skill, stamina, strength, endurance... and their coming together and the friendship.

I was very proud when Sydney won the Olympics and felt very fortunate to watch several events in my 'backyard'. And although I don't live in Beijing.. well just being in China is close enough to the Olympics 'action'.

I just don't see why those involved with the Olympics should be penalized and why China does not deserve the Olympics??? OK so they almost beat Sydney back in 1993 when the 2000 games winner was announced, but now that Sydney has had its turn they deserve a chance too. Surely the most populous nation on earth deserves at least ONE chance to host an Olympic Games... something that's been going for over 100 years? Surely? And all those people saying "I'm going to boycott the Olympics".. well good luck to you. Besides you couldn't go even if you wanted to because tickets (from what I read on the official site) are only available to China residents, and the accommodation price is 5x the normal rate.

I know this post isn't very coherant but when I hear of news reports and people's comments I don't know whether to laugh, cry, scream, or vomit. It really is disgusting the level of ignorance around...

The Five Stages of culture shock

I just found this interesting article on a Facebook group, you can read the same article here


Culture shock is divided into five stages. Each stage can be long standing or appears only under certain conditions. It is important to realize that culture shock is a perfectly normal condition which affects persons differently, just as grief, shock and other pressures in life. Some people show stronger reactions than others and not all experience all the five stages of culture shock.


THE FIRST STAGE is often called the honeymoon stage. It is characterized by tension and expectations. While it is going on, people enjoy the excitement that arises from being in a new place where everything is interesting. Some people never leave this initial stage of the exitement that goes along with being abroad. They are constantly experiencing a mild ecstacy and behave like eternal tourists: travel to new and interesting places, make friends only with their fellow countrymen and retain their old way of living. For most people however, the honeymoon passes by and they enter into the second and most difficult stage of the culture shock.


THE SECOND STAGE is the actual shock. We experience that with our students in the Reception Department. Therfore it will be discussed more thoroughly than the other stages.

It can be characterized with loss of courage and general discomfort. Changes in character occur, depression, lack of self-confidence and irritation, people become more vulnerable and prone to crying, more worried about their health, suffer from headache, bad stomach and complaint about pain and allergy. Difficulties with concentration often occur and reduce the ability to learn a new language. These factors increase the anxiety and the stress.

In the following period, the self-awareness dissolves and people have trouble with solving simple problems. Conversations on this stage are about things that can not be bought, what you must get along without, and everything that the people in the new country do wrong (which means “differently”). This stage can be characterized with escape, because in this period you always think of returning to the old country.

People tend to regard ones own culture as the only way to do the things. This attitude has been called "ethnocentrism". That is the belief that ones own culture, race and nation is the navel of the world. Individuals identify with their own group and its habits. All critical remarks are regarded as a provocation to the individual just as the group. “If you criticize me, you are criticizing my country, if you criticize my country, you are criticizing me.”

Therefore people often show hostile and aggressive resistance against the host country on the second stage of the culture shock. This hostility comes from natural difficulties that a family or individuals run into in the adjustment process. "I feel terribly in the new country, there must be something terribly wrong here"!!!

There are problems in school, difficulties with language, trouble with lodging and employment as well as the fact that the people in the host country just don’t care about these problems or don’t seem to understand them. The result is aggressiveness and discomfort because the people don’t seem like foreigners at all.

Therefore it is important to understand culture shock and what is going on in relations between people. It is important to consider carefully the conduct toward people suffering from culture shock. In the beginning, people are often well received, but when time passes and the novelty disappears, the attitude often turns into indifference or dislike which immigrants experience as hostility. Thus aggressive hostility can escalate on both sides.

Instead of regarding the difficulties in a cultural context, people speak about these problems as if they were specially invented by the host country, in order to get the visitor into a trouble. Under such circumstances, circulating stereotypes emerge, which can lead to collisions if people doesn’t practice tolerance. “These Icelanders”, or “these immigrants” are so and so.......!


THE THIRD STAGE of culture shock is characterized with one’s plunging into new ways of living. With patience, it is possible to reach this stage by the end of the first year. Key aspects in a new culture are being learned and the earlier chaos and lack of direction seldom appears. Relations with the native population are initiated, such as neighbours and workmates or schoolmates. The vocabulary and pronunciation is being learned. Instead of standing outside and watching the culture with critical eyes, people plunge into the life of the new country.


THE FOURTH STAGE is the final stage of the assimilation, characterized with full participation in the way of life in the new country. People seldom think of “them” and “us”. They have assimilated to life, regarding both emotions and general activities and life just as easy as before moving.


THE FIFTH STAGE: Long after people have moved back to the homeland, something unexpected happens. They experience the fifth stage of the culture shock. It is called a reverse culture shock or returning shock, and appears after the return home again. The homeland is not comfortable any more because people have been away from home for a long time and have become comfortable with customs and habits belonging to a new lifestyle. Much has changed and it takes some time to get used to way of life, gestures and symbols of one’s own culture.


For me, my order was totally different. I started on the second stage, then went to the first stage, and now I'm on the third stage. I don't think I'll ever get to the fourth stage, and I'm pretty sure I'll get the fifth stage when I return home. I KNOW I will because I get that every time I return home even from a short vacation!