This article examines global city reporting and city indices as an example of governing at a distance. The notion of global cities has been used in social sciences since the 1990s to designate a new kind of spatial expression of the logic of accumulation. Especially since the early 2000s this notion has been taken to use by wider discursive networks of think tanks, consultancy companies, business journalists, state authorities etc. Simultaneously, there has been an explosion in global city reporting and a veritable ‘city index industry’ that relies on various kinds of numerical data has been born. The article examines global city reporting and indices as a disciplinary mechanism which normalizes neoliberalism. The article contains a detailed analysis of a selected number of global city reports and also pays attention to their interpretation and diffusion.
