London world's most influential global city for 2014: Forbes

An analysis by Forbes magazine has revealed that London is the most influential city of the world for 2014, despite Britain coming second in the world power list.

Joel Kotkin, one of the analysts wrote in the magazine that more than a century after the decline of the British Empire, London continues to occupy the top position in the list.

The analysis that showed New York, Paris and Singapore following the British capital also demonstrated a shift of power to "savvy" cities rather than the fastest growing or the largest ones, reported the BBC.

Kotkin said that the largest metropolitan cities used to be the most influential ones as well some time ago but the analysis showed that the trend has changed and size is no longer as important now.

Kotkin analyzed 58 metropolitan cities in eight categories along with urban geographer Ali Modarres, analyst Aaron Renn and demographer Wendell Cox. The categories included, foreign investment attracted by the cities, the concentration of corporate headquarters, businesses, ease of air travel, financial services, technology, media power and racial variety.

The report said that Dubai, ranked at the seventh position, was the only city from the Middle East and the developing world to have featured on the list. Delhi and Mumbai appeared only in the 30s along with Johannesburg from South Africa and Sao Paulo from Latin America.

Experts believe that poor infrastructure coupled with corruption and a problematic judicial system will mean that many cities from the developing world will fail to appear amidst the top 10 for at least a decade.