The obsession with measuring, classifying and translating each human facet into numbers is not born now, with the Big Data fetish, but comes from at least two centuries of Enlightenment and positivism. We have metrics for everything, although, in reality, because we don’t know, we don’t even know exactly how many people live on 70% of the world. But we keep trying.
The cities with the most super-rich and the great tycoon of each city
1
New York, 92 Billionaires Michael Bloomberg $48 billion
2
Hong Kong, 71 billionaires Lee Shau Kee $28.1 billion
3
Moscow, 70 billionaires Vladimir Potanin $19.7 billion
4
Beijing, 67 billionaires Zhang Yiming 16.2 billion dollars
5
London, 56 billionaires Len Blavatnik $17 billion
6
Shanghai, 46 billionaires Colin Huang $16.5 billion
7
Shenzen, 44 billionaires Ma Huanten g 38.1 billion dollars
8
Mumbai, 38 billionaires Mukesh Ambani $36.8 billion
9
San Francisco, 37 billionaires Dustin Moskovitz $9.3 billion
10
Singapore, 31 billionaires Zhang Yong $11 billion
This premise helps us to introduce the sensitive differences between the different rankings that seek to establish where the largest number of billionaires on the planet reside. Even so, we can fix some considerations. The first is that the large metropolises, despite the pandemic and the supposed flight to the countryside, continue to concentrate a large part of the world’s wealth. Repeated near-death alarms for New York were “grossly exaggerated,” as Mark Twain would say: The Big Apple remains home to the planet’s wealthiest.
Moscow ranks third in the ranking of billionaires living in the city, with a total of 70.
This, at least, is what emerges from a report by the financial analysis company WealthX and the real estate platform Realm. 24,660 people with assets greater than $30 million own a first or second home in New York. The choice to include second homes, analysts explain, has allowed for a “more holistic view of the residential footprint” of the ultra-rich.
In fact, only 47% of these lucky Big Apple homeowners have chosen the city as their primary residence. Los Angeles (home to 16,295 billionaires), London (14,485), Hong Kong (14,235) and Paris (7,035) follow some distance behind. However, the highest density of millionaires is concentrated in the tiny principality of Monaco, where one in 29 residents meets the study’s standards. Also in this case it would be necessary to investigate the true residence of these privileged people.
Unreal census
The highest density of millionaires is concentrated in Monaco, although it is not clear that it is their true place of residence
Another interesting ranking is the one that considers the 2,095 members of the 2020 Forbes World’s Billionaires list. Once again, and for the sixth consecutive year, the majority of them reside in New York. Specifically, 92 billionaires consider the American metropolis their main residence. The only other US city in the top ten is San Francisco, which ranks ninth.
Hong Kong is confirmed as the second city with the largest number of billionaires in the world according to Forbes, although it registers a decrease due to the contraction of the real estate sector, the main source of income for many of its wealthiest inhabitants. Rounding out the podium is Moscow, the only city in the top 10 besides Shenzhen, in China, where every Forbes list member earned their fortune rather than inherited it. More than 80% of Russia’s billionaires live in its capital, including mining magnate Vladimir Putin, who is also the country’s richest person. Officially at least, given the latest revelations about his near namesake Vladimir Putin, who also lives in Moscow, by the way.
London ranks fifth in number of billionaires but is the third city in the ranking if the factor of being the main residence is included.
China retains the title of country with the most cities in the top 10, with Shenzhen, seventh, moving up one position and qualifying ahead of Mumbai, India. For their part, Shanghai and Beijing maintain the sixth and fourth position respectively. Singapore closes the list to the detriment of Seoul. This year, the Southeast Asian city-state welcomed nine new billionaires, while the South Korean capital posted a net loss of ten members of the prestigious club.
A new model
Moscow and Shenzen are the only cities in the top 10 of the Forbes list where the richest earned their fortune instead of inheriting it.
Actually, according to this report, London would be the city with the most millionaires, and not billionaires: that is, rich people, but not very very rich. In fact, analysts consider property owners, including homes, whose global value reaches one million dollars. And in the British capital these individuals would be 875,000, about 50,000 more than in New York, almost one in ten Londoners.
Singapore is the 10th city in the world with the highest number of billionaires: 31
A huge figure, which clashes with the fact that in the same city 2.5 million people live in conditions of poverty. It must be said that these are data, updated after the pandemic, on which the extremely high average value of real estate weighs. Therefore, it does not mean that these owners necessarily have as high a standard of living as one might think.
