Six Indian Cities Ranked in Global 20

Yet again, Indian cities continue to dominate the JLL’s City Momentum Index (CMI) and Bengaluru tops the list of world’s 20 most dynamic cities. Closely following Bengaluru is Hyderabad that is ranked second with Delhi (4th), Pune (5th), and Chennai (7th) featuring in top 10 cities. At 15th position, Kolkata was the sixth Indian city ranked amongst top 20. This is for the third consecutive year Indian cities have performed well in comparison to other global cities.

The momentum index identifies urban economies and real estate markets undergoing most rapid growth. It focuses purely on short-term momentum over a three-year horizon and covers 131 major established and emerging business hubs globally.

The winning factor

A number of factors continue to make Bengaluru and other cities be on top. The top-performing cities this year have a strong connection with the technology sector that continues to transform both real estate and economic growth.

Aptly named as the Silicon Valley of India, Bengaluru is a classic example of this transformation. While several big global tech companies have set their operations in the city, the city has seen a tremendous rise in the number of startups, co-working centres and non-IT sector companies in the past decade. Today, it is home to five of India’s eight Unicorns (companies valued over US$1 billion). As a result of the huge influx of tech and talent in the city, the real estate sector has also seen stability over the past few years. The growth of a strong commercial segment has led the city’s retail, hospitality and residential landscape stronger. In fact, according to JLL estimates, the city has been recognized as the third largest hospitality market and a leading retail market in the country.

Hyderabad that ranks second on the scale is also home to several successful startups and focuses on deep tech. All major technology-led companies around the globe have offices in the city. The real estate market of Hyderabad has been one of the best performing markets in India for the last few years in terms of the absorption and new launches.

While there is rapid growth in urbanization, increasing transparency of the Indian real estate, by way of policy reforms, has added to the positive business climate. The implantation of the Real Estate Regulation and Development Act (RERA) in 2016 has been an important milestone and has greatly enhanced the transparency of our markets. While there is focus on infrastructure development, urban local bodies and government agencies have continued to focus on improving the living standards across urban centres.

As a result of the influx, cities have attracted huge investments so far. The investments have been across all segments of real estate – residential, commercial along with the development of infrastructure projects including warehousing and logistics sector. All these investments are focused on the creation of sustainable future cities, which are well-connected and offer healthy living.

Consider the example of some leading cities. While Bengaluru is developing new lines in the city’s metro line system, Hyderabad has initiated a large-scale tree plantation programme (TKHH). The later aims to improve green cover in the state to 33 percent from the current levels of 24%. Pune that ranks fifth on the Index, is developing a three-line metro system to improve urban mobility. And all these cities have a well-established RERA mechanism (read transparent) and focus on giving value to urban living.

The rapid growth of cities, however, have also introduced several new challenges. There is pressure on the infrastructure and the environment to support and fulfil the needs of an ever increasing population. Hence, cities must not look at short-term growth transitions but must enforce long-term impactful changes. Cities need to address the adverse environmental impact of rapid change. They need to look at the problems relating to urban mobility and housing shortage. There is a need to continuously improve the transparency across our cities. Only then investors will put in long-term investments.

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