Innovators: Tokyo

A handful of locales generate most innovations. The ongoing communications and transportation revolutions let ideas circulate among these places easily and constantly.

Producers: Guadalajara

These regions use established innovations and creativity--often imported from other places--to produce goods and services. Increasingly, they are becoming innovators in their own right.

Global Slums: Bogotá

The large, densely populated centers of the developing world are rife with poverty, social and political unrest, and little meaningful economic activity.

Big Valleys: Greenland

The rest of the world is made up of the rural areas and far-flung places that have meager populations and economies.