Best Cities for Innovation

EnlargeKansas City | courtesy of the Nelson-Atkins Museum/Timothy Hursley

EnlargeHyderabad | photography by AFP/Getty Images

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You can see it in their stats and in their cityscapes: These 12 Fast Cities around the globe are thriving. We'll be watching these nodes of creativity and innovation this year and beyond -- we're expecting big business and big things.

Beijing

Peer through the shroud of smog, and you'll see Beijing all dressed up for the Olympics, with daring new buildings like Rem Koolhaas's CCTV HQ. China's economy is booming, and the arts scene is too. The newest draw in the hip 798 district is the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, funded by a Belgian baron.

Hyderabad

"Cyberabad" it may be, but Andhra Pradesh's capital is more diverse than rival Indian IT hub Bangalore. Home to development centers for Microsoft, Accenture, and IBM, it also has strong pharma and aviation sectors, plus a new international airport. But rapid change has stoked fears that megamalls will swamp this nexus of Indian culture.

Mexico City

Fun fact: Mexico has more undergrads than the U.S. does. Education has helped Mexico City grow its middle class and become an aviation center, luring Cessna and Bombardier. Latin America's cultural capital hosts the muy caliente art fair MACO. And the trendiness quotient will soar this fall when a Nobu branch opens.

Kigali

With Rwanda's economy zipping along -- growth has climbed past 6% -- development dollars have flooded Kigali. A stock exchange opened in January. And President Paul Kagame has plans to build the capital into an African science-and-tech hub, pledging to spend 5% of GDP on research by 2012 and turning military facilities into educational ones.

Seattle

Is the next Silicon Valley on Puget Sound? Washington has the U.S.'s highest proportion of engineers, and Seattle is seeing $1 billion in VC funds a year. The Fremont District, home to Google's new research lab, has become a magnet for tech startups. Raising Seattle's cultural cred: the art museum's recent expansion and the opening of the $85 million Olympic Sculpture Park.

Orlando

There's more to Orlando than Mickey. It's now a hub for two burgeoning industries: interactive games -- a lively scene has sprouted around the Electronic Arts studio behind Madden NFL -- and biotech. A new medical complex in the Lake Nona area will house a University of Central Florida med school and a branch of the famed Burnham Institute for Medical Research.

Calgary

Oil and gas, with assists from finance and tech, have made this Canadian city the No. 1 boomtown in North America. Boutique hotels and trendy eateries are becoming as ubiquitous as Western-style saloons, and construction recently began on architect Norman Foster's building, the Bow. The downside of the boom: a labor shortage so severe that even fast-food workers can demand $15 per hour.

Moscow