How the World Class Score works

The World Class Score is the flat average of six scores out of 100 that every city in the City Index carries: nightlife, luxury, privacy, dating scene, late night and alternative scene. Each of the six is an editorial judgement we make against a written rubric, set out below. None of it is survey data, and none of it is measured. The six are added, divided by six, and the result is the combined score. Equal weights, no hidden formula, a date on every figure.

That is the whole answer. The rest is what each number is asking, and the places where a number should not be trusted.

Editorial judgements, not survey data

Nobody filled in a form. There is no panel of visitors, no booking data, no poll. We go through each city against the rubric and decide where it sits, and the rubric is published so that you can disagree with us on specific grounds rather than on a feeling.

That is a weaker claim than measurement, and a more honest one. A judgement with its reasoning on display can be argued with; a figure dressed as data can only be believed. Our editorial standards say the same thing in fewer words, and where this page and that one disagree, that one wins.

The six scores, and what each one is asking

Each score asks one question. What follows is the question, what moves the number, and what 30, 60 and 90 look like in practice. The numbers in between are interpolation, and a gap of a few points between two cities should be read as a tie.

Nightlife

How much there is, how late it runs, and how many separate scenes manage to ignore each other. Depth across several districts and several nights of the week pushes it up. One strip, one crowd and a city that only exists on Saturdays pull it down.

• 30: one district, two nights, a handful of bars sharing the same faces.
• 60: several districts and a proper weekend. A weekday exists, but you have to know where.
• 90: a Tuesday worth dressing for, scenes that never meet, more rooms than one visit can cover.

Luxury

The depth of the high end: hotels, private clubs, concierge culture, doors with lists on them. Institutions push it up, the kind with membership committees and staff who remember you. Price without access pulls it down, because an expensive bottle is not the same thing as a room you cannot get into.

• 30: one grand hotel and a wine list with ambitions. You pay more; you are not let further in.
• 60: a cluster of hotel bars, a members’ club or two, lists you can get onto if you try.
• 90: a whole district built around it, and the rooms worth getting into have no sign on the street.

Privacy

How easily you go out without being photographed, logged or discussed afterwards. It has two halves, and they rarely agree: what the street records, meaning cameras and card trails, and what the room does with what it saw. Enforced no-photo rules and a culture of not mentioning things push it up. Dense surveillance, photographers at the door and a social scene that runs on who-left-with-whom pull it down.

• 30: photographed on the way in, discussed by breakfast.
• 60: discreet rooms on watchful streets, or the reverse.
• 90: little recorded, and nothing repeated.

Dating scene

How people actually meet, and how formal anyone is prepared to be about it. Several routes running at once push it up: apps, introductions, bars where talking to a stranger is ordinary. A closed social world pulls it down, as does a scene that only happens on a screen.

• 30: everyone met at school and still does. Strangers stay strangers.
• 60: apps do most of the work, bars some of it, introductions for those who already know someone.
• 90: three or four routes at once, and a city relaxed about the conversation at the bar going wherever it goes.

Late night

What is still open at four in the morning, and who is entitled to be in it. Licensing that allows late hours, transport that runs and kitchens that are still cooking push it up. A hard closing time, an empty road home and late hours that exist only behind a membership pull it down.

• 30: the lights go up at two, and the only thing open sells petrol.
• 60: a few late licences, a night bus, a members’ bar that keeps going for those already inside.
• 90: four in the morning is a choice rather than an exception, and the doors still let strangers in.

Alternative scene

Everything living outside the luxury track, usually south and east of it. Independent venues, queer nightlife, clubs and art spaces that do not depend on the hotel economy, and that survive their rents, push it up. One warehouse, a scene priced out of the centre, or “alternative” as a theme bar pull it down.

• 30: a warehouse night once a month and a bar that calls itself underground.
• 60: an established district with its own clubs, some of it already in the guidebooks.
• 90: a parallel city with its own hours, its own door policies, and no interest in whether the luxury track has heard of it.

The World Class Score, and why the average is flat

The six are added and divided by six. Nothing is weighted.

We tried weighted versions. They mostly encoded our preferences rather than revealing anything about the cities. Weight luxury and you have built a ranking of where money goes. Weight alternative scene and you have built the opposite ranking, with the same false confidence. A flat average says only that each of the six counts, and leaves the question of which one counts most to you.

It is also a blunt instrument, and it should be read as one. An average flattens shape: a city of extremes and a city of steady middles can land on the same figure. The six separate scores are published so that the shape stays visible.

A worked example: London

London’s six scores, and the arithmetic:

Read the shape, not the total. Nightlife and luxury sit near the top of the rubric, which is Mayfair and Soho doing what they have done for decades. Late night at 66 is the city giving up at five, more completely than its size suggests. Privacy at 70 is the two halves disagreeing: rooms that keep quiet on streets that keep records. London after dark spends a thousand words on exactly that tension, and a single 79.7 cannot hold any of it.

How scores are reviewed and dated

Every score carries the date it was set. When a city changes, it gets rescored: a licensing regime, a district that moves upmarket or empties, a scene that loses its rooms. The new figure takes a new date, and the previous one stays visible in the page history rather than being quietly replaced. A number that cannot tell you when it was true is not worth much.

City scores also feed Rankings, where cities are ordered rather than described. The World Class 100 runs on a different method entirely, reader votes between pairs of invented characters, and the two should not be confused.

What a score cannot tell you

This is where the method stops, and it stops plainly.

A score is not a recommendation. It describes how a city behaves after dark. Whether that suits you depends on which of the six you care about.

A score is not a safety rating. Privacy measures discretion, not danger. Nothing in the six says anything about crime, personal safety or how a city treats visitors who get into trouble. For the practical side of keeping your evening your own, see our guide to privacy on the night.

A score says nothing about the law. Where a city draws its legal lines is set out in Guides, plainly and dated, and it is not folded into any number.

Nothing on the City Index says that anyone is offered or available. The scores describe cities. They are not listings, they do not point to anyone, and there is nobody behind them to contact.

Six numbers, one average, and an argument you are invited to have with us. Bring the rubric.