Glasgow voted Europe's top city of the future

Feb 15 2012 By Ben Spencer

Gordon Matheson

GLASGOW has been named Europe’s top large “city of the future”.

Foreign investment publication fDi Magazine ranked European cities on their potential to capture future investment.

Glasgow and Edinburgh were named at the top of the list of “large European cities” – cities with a population between 500,000 and one million – outstripping
Amsterdam, Oslo and Helsinki.

Birmingham was the only other large UK city in the top 10, in seventh place.

London was named the top European city overall, ahead of Paris and Vienna. Reading (5th), Cambridge (7th) and Dublin (8th) also made the overall top 10, with Edinburgh coming just outside in 11th place and Glasgow at 14th.

Dundee came 25th despite being classed as a “micro city” by population.

Councillor Gordon Matheson, leader of Glasgow City Council and chair of Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, said: “A generation ago, it would have unthinkable to
consider Glasgow achieving this status in such a short time.”

And Scott Taylor, chief executive of Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, said: “Glasgow’s success is borne from the tremendous strength of its partnership approach to securing inward investment.

“Taken together with the city’s status as a world-leading research centre across its five universities, this recognition by fDi Magazine is testament to the hard work
carried out everyday by national
and local partners.”

Glasgow came in fifth place for business friendliness, with
Edinburgh coming 10th just behind Birmingham.

Courtney Fingar, editor of fDi Magazine, said: “fDi’s rankings
reveal the cities and regions that stand the best chance of capturing future investment and expansion projects by multinational companies.”