Posthaste: Canada plummets in ranking of world’s most innovative cities
Economic DevelopmentSummary
Major Canadian cities plummet by an average of 95 places in the world's most innovative cities ranking. The annual ranking measures cities ability to foster innovation with indicators such as COVID-19 cases, economic recovery and digital transformation. Critics blame this year’s poor performance on Canada’s uniform centralism policy for stifling competition among provinces and cities. The US, meanwhile, has shown surprising improvement, with over half of the top hundred cities situated in the country. Analysts attribute its success to the “work from home” arrangement which brings local expertise back to their hometown and encourages innovation. European countries, on the other hand, have also suffered from a drop in ranking due to stringent pandemic measures policies that drove workers out of cities and damaged their innovation economy.