China Cities Rising As World’s Most Powerful. Shanghai Bests San Francisco.

Chinese cities are climbing the ranks as the world’s most powerful, with Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai now topping household names like Los Angeles, Berlin and Tokyo, to name a few.

But in order for China to keep rising to compete with the likes of Western power centers, it needs to create cities more open to diversity, and more inclusive, say analysts from A.T. Kearney in their 2019 Global Cities Index. The report was published in May.

Diversity and inclusion in China?

Yeah, good luck with that, fellas.

As Chinese cities become more international, complete with ubiquitous Starbucks cafes and Apple Stores, balancing the local population’s needs for easy and affordable modes of transportation and housing with individual fulfillment is becoming essential. In other words, most of China’s cities are kinda boring, especially compared to the world’s top 5 cities: New York, London, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Still, Beijing beats Washington, D.C.

Xi Jinping’s home city is ranked No. 9 on the Global Cities Index while Donald Trump’s new home city is ranked No. 10 (though it is up one notch, while Beijing is flat from 2018).

A.T. Kearney says that one of the ways Chinese cities can climb up the ranks, enabling Shanghai to one day surpass Hong Kong, for example, is more diversity. They singled out sexual orientation in their report.

“Shanghai’s pride week provides an ideal example, ensuring the self-expression of the city’s LGBTQ residents and improving Shanghai’s reputation on the global stage as an inclusive city,” report authors led by Mike Hales and Jefferson Wang wrote.

Shanghai’s 19th place on the Global Cities Index remains unchanged from 2018. The city is ahead of Boston (21) and San Francisco (22).

One type of diversity that is perhaps more palatable to the Communist Party in Beijing is bringing in high-skilled, foreign workers. Hong Kong has been a bastion of this for over a century, owning to its British colonial heritage. That is not so in most Chinese cities.

Although the report does not reference China’s Greater Bay Area project, a high-tech development zone linking Hong Kong to mainland cities in the Southeastern part of the mainland, Beijing could score A.T. Kearney’s diversity points by importing foreign tech workers similar to the H-1B visa program in the United States.

“A scarcity of talent has led to fierce competition among Chinese cities,” says Wang.

Initiatives that foster opportunities in higher education and support start-up ecosystems help attract newcomers and enable cities to keep the talent they have.  Chengdu, located in central China, has become one example of this. Its startup community counts many Europeans and Canadian-born Chinese who are looking for opportunities in China’s burgeoning tech market.

Chengdu is ranked No. 89, unchanged from last year’s ranking.

Over the past 40 years, China’s cities have gone from traditional dynastic structures built around courtyards, to modern, glass and steel skyscrapers symbolic of modern day capitalism.

Their urbanization rate rose from 18% in 1978 to 60% in 2018. China’s urban population now stands at around 830 million.

City governments pursued rapid expansion an increased population and economic output to build up its urban areas over the last 20 years. It led to a global commodities super cycle that lasted until around 2008, crashing and never really recovering after the Great Recession here in the U.S.

And so by 2011, China’s urbanization began to slow down. Urban diseases appeared due in part to pollution and poor urban planning around things such as water and sewer.

At this point, Chinese cities shifted to quality-oriented development, designed to mimic the international lifestyle of Hong Kong. This became the key contributor to the fast growth of Chinese cities climbing up the ranks of A.T. Kearney’s Global Cities Index, Wang wrote.

“The next round of city transformation will focus on citizens,” Wang wrote. “At a macro level, this means building a sustainable population structure. At a micro level, it means improving the well-being of citizens.” 

A.T. Kearney’s annual Global Cities Index is meant for corporations looking to assess which cities can deliver in the areas considered most important for business growth, and most attractive for foreign employees.

China has 27 cities on the Global Cities Index this year. The Index has 130 cities, of which 11 Chinese cities populate the list of the top 100.

This post first appeared on Forbes.com. To see the original, click here.