Vertical Urbanism Index
The City Advocacy Forum’s Vertical Urbanism Index examines the relationship between tall buildings, high density, and livability, evaluated through social, economic, and environmental dimensions.
The Index analyzes 83 urban agglomerations, comparing them objectively using data from the World Bank and the United Nations. Each urban agglomeration was assigned a score from 0 to 10 for each metric, with the lowest-performing city receiving a 0 and the highest a 10. No score was given if data was unavailable or unreliable for a specific metric.
The best-performing cities are ranked by their composite score in the final column of the table below.
Interactive Data
Click each drop-down below to explore the component data of the Vertical Urbanism Index.
The nominal population of urbanized land, relative to other areas studied.
Annual Change in Urban Population
The percentage growth of urban population between 2022 and 2023, relative to other areas studied.
Life Expectancy
The average life expectancy of residents within each urbanized area.
Literacy Rate
The average literacy rate (in any language) for urban residents of at least 18 years of age.
A composite of the UN’s Gender Development Index and Human Development Index.
Income Inequality
As measured by the Gini coefficient, this measures the equitable distribution of incomes across the urban area.
GDP Growth
Annual percentage increase in gross domestic product of an urban area.
The deviation of average annual temperature and humidity from global averages.
Urban Sprawl
The annualized ratio of new population to greenfield development area measures the degree of urban sprawl from the extent of the urbanized area.
Air Quality
The annual average exposure of PM2.5 across the urbanized area as measured by stations that report to IQAir.
Hazard Resilience
A composite measure of an urban area’s preparedness for natural disasters, based on geography and governance.
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