A study created by AT Kearney and Bloomberg, shows that the city of New York is the most important business center in the world, managing to be ranked better than London, Paris or Tokyo.

The top 10 is completed by cities like Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seoul, Bruxelles and Wasington DC.

The study evaluates the most important 66 urban business centers in the world, based on five criteria: business environment, access to human capital, media market and access to information, cultural profile and political influence.

“Our purpose was to find a measure unit to help decision factors in corporate environments and Governments to determine which of the world’s cities will attract and shape the flow of people, ideas, capital and assets in the future” Mile Hales, partner at A.T. Kearney said, a consultancy company from Chicago.

Beijing and Shanghai are the cities with the biggest anticipate growth over the next 10-20 years, with chances of becoming more important than other Western cities.

Investments in public transportation, cultural objectives, education, public safety, energy, became important for the biggest cities of the world, which are trying to keep or consolidate competition.

New York, a city which came in first in previous editions of the top, in 2008 and 2010, might lose it’s influence over the next few years because of the gap between very rich and very poor people, according to James Parrot, chief economist over at Fiscal Policy Institute.