Flanders

New guide to the cleverest cities ignores Brussels, Paris, Rome.

Antwerp and Leuven are among the 50 cleverest cities in Europe, according to a new book published last week. Antwerp is praised for its fashion, diamonds and port industry, and Leuven for beer and biotechnology. Both cities, like the other 48, “have a very creative population, outstanding entrepreneurs and an attractive reputation,” the book says.

Slimme steden: van Antwerpen tot Zürich (Smart Cities: from Antwerp to Zürich) was written by the editorial team at the Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad. The principle derives from the work of American urban studies theorist and economist Richard Florida, who proposed the idea that cities with large numbers of information workers, creative artists, lesbians and gay men – and a group he calls “high bohemians” – would show higher levels of economic development. A creative city would attract not only businesses and investment, he suggested, but also more creative people, and so the circle would continue.

Antwerp and Leuven are the only two Belgian cities on the list, which, incidentally, doesn’t bother with rankings within the 50. Perhaps more surprisingly, the list neglects world-class cities like Paris and London. France, for example, provides Nice (conventions, technology), Marseilles (music and port) and Lille (art and, oddly, train connections). The United Kingdom sees four cities generally considered old-industrial: Liverpool, Glasgow, Newcastle and Manchester. If you had to ask, the reasons are, respectively: music, media, biotechnology and football.

Just as on the school playground, so on the world stage: when it comes to cleverness, the little guy often leaves the bigger ones behind. Among the less-celebrated cities on the list are Essen in Germany (mining history), Torshaven in the Faroe Islands (fisheries and roof insulation technology), Cagliari on Sardinia (ceramics) and Väkjö in Sweden (green tech). The cutest of the whole list must be Billund in Denmark, home of Lego, tinder for the fires of so much creativity.

There is no shortage of capitals, but mainly in central and eastern Europe: Tallinn (technology), Tirana (architecture), Budapest (art), Bratislava (building), Vilnius (art) and Sofia (film). Helsinki (technology) gets in, as do Oslo (graphic design), Stockholm (fashion) and Copenhagen (design).

Least surprising choice for a clever city? Athens, selected for its archaeology and shipping. Some things never change.