San Francisco has been named the most dynamic city for 2013 in Jones Lang LaSalle’s new City Momentum Index.

The index identifies cities that show both strong short-term socio-economic and commercial real estate momentum, and also have a strong foundation for future growth. It recognizes that commercial real estate is not just a result of a city’s success, but also a driver of it.

“City momentum is about far more than just raw GDP growth,” says Jeremy Kelly, director of global research for Jones Lang LaSalle. “The true foundation of highly dynamic cities emerges from such factors as speed of innovation and creation of cutting-edge businesses along with new building construction, property price movement and investment in real estate from cross-border investors and corporations.”

London, Dubai, Shanghai and Wuhan, China all follow San Francisco. In total, 111 cities were assessed by the index — the weighted overall score was based on 34 short-term and longer-term variables including:

• Short-term socio-economic momentum variables including air passenger traffic, corporate headquarter presence, and recent and projected changes in both population and GDP.
• Short-term commercial real estate momentum variables such as office rents and construction, direct commercial real estate investment volumes, shopping mall construction and retail rents.
• Longer-term variables that try to determine future economic strength and real estate momentum using indicators such as university presence and educational infrastructure, innovation capability, and presence of technology and venture capital firms.