City's Global Appeal: Conceptualization and Empirical Interpretation (Moscow case)

Student: Remezkova Viktoriya

Educational Programme: Bachelor

Year of Graduation: 2014

The study investigates Moscow’s potential in becoming a global city and analyses different sides of its global appeal. The study aims to reveal factors connected to the rise of Moscow’s global appeal observed in the last decade. Unlike widespread approach that attributes paramount importance to financial and economic traits of the city, this study demonstrates significance of wider set of factors. Combining applied studies of city’s attractiveness and the literature on globalization and global cities, the author develops a concept of ‘city’s global appeal’ which includes three components: appeal for foreign investors, foreign high-skilled migrants, and tourists from abroad. Distinguishing between three categories of people who can be attracted to the city allows to make less abstract and more substantial conclusion about the factors of city’s global appeal. Empirical part of the study includes quantitative component that involves correlation analysis run on the database that was composed by the author, and the qualitative component that consists of a number of expert interviews. As a result, the study reveals the set of factors of Moscow’s appeal for all three categories of people – foreign investors, foreign high-skilled migrants, and tourists from abroad. It was found out that factors of city’s appeal for foreign investors are: high level of city’s economic development, developed financial sector, beneficial taxation system and effective legal regulation, highly educated population that is able to provide innovative ideas, and transportation and communicational accessibility. Factors of city’s appeal for foreign high-skilled migrants are the following: favorable economic climate, high level of wages, high quality of life, leisure and recreational infrastructure, and transportation and communicational accessibility. Finally, factors of city’s appeal for tourists from abroad are: comfort of urban environment, developed service sector, animated cultural life, and transportation and communicational accessibility.

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