Territorial Review Copenhagen - Region Hovedstaden

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Several cities of comparable size can claim to be considerably more
global. Metropolitan areas need not necessarily be large to have a strong
global presence, as is illustrated in the case of Brussels, Amsterdam, Zurich,
Geneva and Dusseldorf. Not only do they have a more global presence in
general, they also have more sectors in which they are more global: all of
them rank in the top 50 in all four sectors that were studied; Copenhagen
only in two. Other northwest European cities, in addition to Amsterdam, that
appear more global than Copenhagen, are Stockholm and Hamburg, which
both appear in the top 50 of three sectors. What is more, these competitor
cities not only have more sectors in which they are global, they also are
more global in the sectors in which Copenhagen is most global: Amsterdam
and Hamburg score higher in global accounting; and Stockholm and
Amsterdam score higher on global advertisement. This is of relevance for
the attraction of foreign investment and highly skilled labour, as will be
shown below. Business activities of global services firm also provide
important links with other global cities. When a client contacts a
professional services firm in Copenhagen, there is an 87% probability that
the firm has an office in London, as well as New York, Toronto, Sydney,
Milan, Stockholm, Madrid and Paris. The highest probability that a firm in a
foreign city would also have an office in Copenhagen is in Stockholm
(61%), followed by Hamburg, Atlanta, Dusseldorf, Minneapolis,
Amsterdam and Barcelona. 15 These economic relations between global
services firms suggest that there are important economic links between
Copenhagen and these cities.
There are indications that business in Copenhagen has become less
internationally oriented over the last decades, by comparison with other
metropolitan areas in the OECD. When looking at links between global
advanced producer firms, some observers conclude that Copenhagen lost
global economic standing over the period from 2000-04 (Taylor and Aranya,
2007). This relative loss in its international position is particularly clear in
certain economic sectors: global competition has had a severe impact on
Denmark‘s finance industry. International finance has undergone extreme
specialisation: the functions that generally generate the highest value added
have become increasingly concentrated in the past few decades in a top tier
of cities, leaving the other functions to lower-tier cities. Intensified
competition and industrial development among middle- to lower-tier cities
resulted in greater spatial differentiation, marginalising some cities. In 1980,
only three vertical tiers of cities can be identified in the world of
international finance. This has increased to seven tiers by 1998.
Copenhagen, which formed part of the third tier in 1980, had fallen back to
the sixth tier by 1998. Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Milan and Paris, which
were in the third tier in 1980, managed to remain in this tier (Poon, 2003).