Bordeaux

This is mostly due to:
- An ambitious urban regeneration agenda, with major projects, both in terms of renovating
the existing built heritage and developing new areas.
- New public transport system, with a state of the art catenary-free tramway, hybrid buses,
a very successful bike sharing scheme, river shuttles, etc.
- An economic agenda to attract talents and businesses, clearly segmented in a short range
of knowledge-based and technology-intensive industries.
- Flagship infrastructures, such as a new convention centre, bridges over the Garonne river and the high speed train, which in 2017 will link Bordeaux to Paris in 2 hours.

Those achievements have been acknowledged by a number of awards and recognitions, like
European best destination in 2015. In December 2015, PwC ranked Bordeaux #4 in France in overall terms but #1 in terms of quality of life. As one of the largest urban areas ever to be listed World Heritage by UNESCO (the nomination dates back to 2007), Bordeaux is nonetheless the opposite of a museum, frozen in its glorious past. The world capital of wine combines its heritage to a very bold approach, of a city widely open to innovation and to the world.

This new vitality is underpinned by the University of Bordeaux (82,000 students), which feed both a dynamic start up local scene and a number of world-scale clusters like the renowned winemaking industry, which employs 50,000 people, aeronautics or health sciences. Also tourism, which is one of the fast growing industries in the city (over 6 million tourists in 2015 vs. 2 million in 2000), in particular the MICE sector (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions), with
world-class events being held in Bordeaux such as Vinexpo every other year or the ITS World
Congress (Intelligent Transport Systems) in October 2015.