Urban Competitiveness Assessment Using the Integration of the Global Power City Index and Multicriteria Decision-Making Methods

Abstract

Cities have emerged as the epicenters of economic activities, innovation, and cultural exchange in the era of urbanization and globalization. The concept of urban competitiveness has garnered increasing attention as a means of understanding the factors driving cities to compete locally and globally. Given cities represent the driving force of economic, social, and cultural development, there is an increasing need to identify the stages of development and establish a system for ranking and positioning cities and regions in this process. Therefore, our study attempts to help Egyptian cities enhance their competitiveness by assessing the competitiveness of 42 cities. These cities have been identified as the most competitive by the government’s Economic Development Strategy 2030 and the National Plan 2050. A total of 10 global power city index indicators for each city during 2015–2022 represent five categories: cultural interaction, economics, research and innovation, environment, and connectivity. The indicators were selected based on data availability by 11 experts. The indicators and alternatives were weighted and ranked using the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and multi-criteria optimization and compromise solution (AHP-VIKOR) hybrid method. The geographic information system was then used to map Egyptian cities into four categories. Our findings, which are compatible with previous articles, reveal that in the case of Egyptian cities, high-government expenditure-based metropolitan cities are more competitive than small and natural resource-based peripheral cities. Egyptian cities’ most effective competitiveness indicators are the gross domestic product (GDP) and unemployment rates of 0.58 and 0.26, respectively. At the same time, the lowest effectiveness is the number of universities among the 50 best in the world as well as the number of hotel rooms, which are 0.039 and 0.044, respectively. Through the proper utilization of opportunities following the competitiveness indicators, medium-sized Egyptian cities with potential will be cities with national and even transnational competitiveness within 10 years. Our results can potentially provide beneficial insights to enhance our comprehension of Egyptian cities’ weaknesses and assist in formulating urban policies for enhancing urban singularity and competitiveness.