World Cities

11 Key excerpts on "World Cities"

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  Urban World/Global City

  • David Clark(Author)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  7 World Cities By the end of this chapter you should: understand the concept of World Cities and the debates which surround the meaning and significance of the term; be familiar with the functions of World Cities and the roles they play in the world economy; be aware of the issues which surround the specification and measurement of world city status; understand the reasons for the rise of World Cities. Introduction The urban world is dominated by a small number of centres that are the command and control points for global capitalism, the world’s dominant economic system. Such centres are distinguished not by their size or their status as capital cities of large countries, but by the range and extent of their economic power. They are the locations for the key individuals, institutions and organisations that manage, manipulate, dictate and determine the formation and reproduction of capitalism across the world. These attributes give such cities a disproportionate and exceptional importance, so that they occupy dominant positions in the global urban hierarchy. So pre-eminent is their status and so powerful and pervasive are their influences that many analysts argue that they merit designation as World Cities. Global economic importance and connectivity are the key criteria for world city status. Most observers today, taking their lead from the ideas of Friedmann (1986), see World Cities as the decision-making and control points for the world economy (Beaverstock et al., 1999). World Cities are distinguished by their roles as sites for the accumulation and concentration of capital and as places from which its distribution and circulation are organised and managed. They are favoured locations for the institutions of international production and consumption and the individuals and agencies that support and facilitate these activities. Function rather than size is critical

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  Human Geography

  People, Place, and Culture

  • Erin H. Fouberg, Alexander B. Nash, Alexander B. Murphy, Harm J. de Blij(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Cities that function in this global context are called World Cities. • World Cities operate within a global urban system, forming important nodes in the global flow of people, technolo- gies, finances, and goods and services. New York, London, and Tokyo are the most important World Cities. • There are various ranking systems for determining where a city fits in the world system. The Institute for Urban Strategies at the Mori Memorial Foundation in Tokyo, Japan, has developed a Global Cities Power Index (GCPI), which uses six main city functions to determine a city’s strength. These functions are economy, research and de- velopment, cultural interaction, livability, environment, and accessibility. • Cities are also spaces of consumption when they are mar- keted as places tourists can experience and consume as entertainment. World Cities market themselves as unique locations with distinctive features–e.g., buildings and structures that everyone recognizes, even though they may never have been there. MAIN POINTS 10.5 What Is the Connection between Cities and Globalization? ADDITIONAL RESOURCES ON-LINE Congress for the New Urbanism: www.cnu.org Globalization and World Cities Research Network: www.lboro. ac.uk/gawc/index.html Sierra Club Challenge to Sprawl Campaign: www.sierraclub.

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  Human Geography

  People, Place, and Culture

  • Erin H. Fouberg, Alexander B. Murphy(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  While we have little data about differences within countries, many of the most important processes of globalization happen among and between World Cities, not between countries. The very way we collect data masks the integral role World Cities play in globalization. World cit- ies function at the global scale, beyond the reach of state borders, as nodes in the world economy. Arguing that models and hierarchies of cities do not reflect the reality of what is happening with the city, geographers Peter Taylor and Robert Lang (2004) argued that the city has become “something else.” The city cannot be understood as a CBD tied into a hierarchy of other cities within a country. The world city is a node in globalization, reflecting processes that have “redrawn the limits on spatial interaction” (Felsenstein et al. 2002). A node is a place where action and interaction occur. As nodes, World Cities are connected to other world cit- ies, and through these connections, they act as forces shaping globalization. Geographers Jon Beaverstock and Peter J. Taylor and their Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network have produced over 400 research papers, chapters, and books on the geography of World Cities. They have collected data for each city on producer services in the areas of banking, law, advertising, and accounting. Using the data, the geographers have established an inventory and a classification of World Cities into Alpha, Beta, and Gamma World Cities (Fig. 9.41). Comparing the top Alpha World Cities in 2000 to the top Alpha cities in 2018 demonstrates the remarkable rise of China in the world economy over the last two decades (Fig. 9.42). Alpha cities are categorized as Alpha++, Alpha+, and Alpha, based on the level of global impact they have. All three categories of Alpha World Cities have the global capacity to provide services in the world economy. The two Alpha++ World Cities, New York and London, are the most important nodes.

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  The SAGE Handbook of Economic Geography

  • Andrew Leyshon, Roger Lee, Linda McDowell, Peter Sunley, Andrew Leyshon, Roger Lee, Linda McDowell, Peter Sunley, SAGE Publications Ltd(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  THE GLOBAL NETWORK OF World Cities In the late twentieth century, world city research has emerged as an influential strand in urban-economic studies (Brenner and Keil, 2006). The rise of a transnational urban per-spective has been closely linked to funda-mental changes in the world economy from the 1970s. Prior to the latest onset of eco-nomic globalization, cities had been viewed predominantly within (and subordinate to) the framework of the nation-state (Taylor, 2004), despite pioneering attempts to draw attention to a number of ‘World Cities’ as major national centres with a disproportion-ate share of the world’s ‘most important busi-ness’ (Hall, 1966). The restructuring of global capitalism in the form of a ‘new international division of labour’ (Fröbel et al., 1980) and a worldwide spatial reorganization of pro (see chapter 5), was accompanied by an increased concentration of corporate power in major cities. Friedmann and Wolff (1982; Friedmann, 1986) famously linked both phenomena in their studies on world city formation, in which they discussed ‘World Cities’ as ‘basing points’ and control centres of capital flows in the world economy. Friedmann’s (1986) ‘world city hierarchy’ was based on a broad range of attribute criteria such as the pres-ence of headquarters for transnational corpo-rations and international institution. It had a profound influence on world city research in the following decades, not least because of his initial mapping of a global urban system that identified primary and secondary cities in the core and semi-periphery of the world economy. A major advancement in transnational urban research was Sassen’s (1991) concept of the ‘global city’.

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  Globalization and Networked Societies

  Urban-Regional Change in Pacific Asia

  • Yue-man Yeung(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • University of Hawaii Press

    (Publisher)

  Notwithstanding the fact that cities have been traditionally associated with economic development in every part of the world from the dawn of history to the present (the subject of an impressive treatise by Bairoch, 1988), the application of the mod-ern world system (Wallerstein, 1974, 1976) to understanding world-wide urbanization began essentially in the last decade. This approach has been facilitated by the earlier influential studies linking city-forming processes to the broader movement of industrial capitalism (Harvey, 1973; Castells, 1977). However, the recognition of a special class of cities —World Cities —began with seminal articles by John Fried-mann and his colleagues in the 1980s (Friedmann and Wolff, 1982; Friedmann, 1986; Korff, 1987). Since then, World Cities, or the world system of metropolises (or variations thereof), have been studied by Christopher Chase-Dunn (1984), Michael Timberlake (1985), David Drakakis-Smith (1986), David Meyer (1986, 1991), Peter Rimmer (1986), Richard Knight and Gary Gappert (1989), and Anthony King (1990). Underlying many of these studies is the notion that certain key cities in the world play vital roles in the global economy. Indeed, they contribute to the internationalization of capital, production, services, and culture, and in turn the benefits derived augment their wealth, cen-trality, and importance. Among the most astounding facets of postwar development are rapid urbanization in developing countries and the concentration of urban population in large cities. The United Nations defined large cities hav-ing a population exceeding eight million as megacities, which have gravitated toward Pacific Asia. Of the world’s twenty-three largest cities in 1995, Asia had thirteen. However, population size alone is only a general indicator of the im-portance of a city and does not reflect its economic and social signifi-cance in the global economy. Certainly, world city status cannot be 24 Overview

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  Urban Geography

  A Critical Introduction

  • Andrew E. G. Jonas, Eugene McCann, Mary Thomas(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Alternatively, cities associated with oppositional struggle, such as Seattle, Cairo, or the many “Occupy cities” might be foremost in our minds (Chapter 2). These are all perfectly valid metrics around which to construct a definition of global influence. Each addresses a certain form of significance and, once the categorization is agreed upon, research and analysis focuses on refining methods and definitions (How exactly do we measure what a city is demographically, for example?) and on assessing these cities’ role in the world. Nonetheless, for the majority of urbanists, the term “global cities” refers to a specific way of thinking about urban globalness – one associated with an extensive body of work conducted by geographers, sociologists, planners, and others that has come to be known as the “global cities literature.” This literature does not exemplify the only approach to understanding the relationships between cities and global processes, but it has been very influential and very useful. Therefore, it is a good starting point for a wider discussion of the variety of ways in which critical urbanists analyze urban globalness. Global cities literature. A literature in geography and urban studies that emerged in the 1980s around the term “World Cities” before adopting the term “global cities” in the 1990s. Still, the terms are used in combination and sometimes interchangeably. The literature is focused on understanding the ways in which cities are related to the organization of the contemporary global economy

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  Ordinary Cities

  Between Modernity and Development

  • Jennifer Robinson(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  A further problem with much of the evidence gathered in this study is its very narrow focus (Hall 2001): ‘the research is very big geographically – global – but very narrow in topic’ (Taylor 2004: 3). Thus it still remains focused on the very small advanced producer-services sector. Recognising this, the world-cities research team collated some evidence on other forms of globalisation, including non-governmental organisation (NGO) location in different cities, for example. Nairobi emerged top of the list of global cities defined along these criteria. A wide range of cities previously unrecognised within global- and world-cities approaches come into view in this way, which is to be welcomed. However, they still failed to capture the diverse and robust connectedness of many large cities. My own home town, Durban, for example, is labelled a near-isolate according to these criteria. Certainly it has practically no headquarters function within the national economy and it has few branches of major multinational accounting, management consulting and banking firms (although it has some). But this still misses the fact that this city of almost 3 million people is a major trading port of Africa and the second manufacturing city of a significant middle-income economy – clearly it is not an isolated place! Indeed, Durban has many different economic connections through the continent and the world and has strong connections with Johannesburg-based companies for the provision of a wide range of services, as witnessed by the very busy airlink connecting the two cities. This kind of result illustrates how a continuing investment in global- and world-cities approaches directs our attention away from the diverse and dynamic economic worlds of cities.

  This example reinforces the conclusion that by relying on such narrow, location-bound indices to map world-city networks, global- and world-cities analyses cannot offer any useful assessment of the economic significance or ‘worldliness’ of most cities. Moreover, and quite ironically, by only measuring place-based evidence, they are unable to capture the economic importance and potential of a city’s diverse connections. The evidence they do gather on a wider range of connections – including advertising, legal firms and NGOs – is quickly passed over. Taylor asserts that even though ‘[c]learly cities in globalization involves more than financial and business services […] the latter are the dominant networkers and I continue to focus on them’ (2004: 100). However, his own evidence suggests that a proper accounting for the diversity of globalisations that shape cities is now in order, including manufacturing, trade and NGOs and also informal networks. As Sassen notes in relation to the three cities (New York, London and Tokyo) she identifies as the top tier of global cities, ‘Besides the vast set of activities that make up their economic base, many typical to all cities, these global cities have a particular component in their economic base […] that gives them a specific role in the current phase of the world economy’ (Sassen 2001a: 127). It is, I suggest, time to turn from these highly concentrated and specialist service-sector activities and pay proper attention to the vast range of activities – many also strongly shaped by globalisation – that make up the actual economies of cities.

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  Handbook of Urban Studies

  • Ronan Paddison(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  In the case of global finance and the leading specialized services catering to global firms and markets – law, accounting, credit rating, telecommunications – it is clear that we are dealing with a cross-border system, one that is embedded in a series of cities, each possibly part of a different country. It is a de facto global system. Finally, a focus on networked cross-border dynamics among global cities also allows us to capture more readily the growing intensity of such transactions in other domains – political, cultural, social, criminal. Global cities around the world are the terrain where a multiplicity of globalization processes assume concrete, localized forms. These localized forms are, in good part, what globalization is Cities in the Global Economy 265 about. Recovering place means recovering the multiplicity of presences in this landscape. The large city of today has emerged as a strategic site for a wide range of new types of operations – political, economic, ‘cultural’, subjective. It is one of the nexi where the formation of new claims, by both the powerful and the disadvantaged, materi-alizes and assumes concrete forms. Economic globalization and telecommunica-tions have contributed to produce a spatiality for the urban which pivots on cross-border networks and territorial locations with massive concentra-tions of resources. This is not a completely new feature. Over the centuries cities have been at the cross-roads of major, often worldwide, processes. What is different today is the intensity, complexity and global span of these networks, the extent to which significant portions of economies are now dematerialized and digitalized and hence the extent to which they can travel at great speeds through some of these networks, and, thirdly, the numbers of cities that are part of cross-border networks operating at vast geographic scales.

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  Advanced Introduction to Cities

  • Peter J. Taylor(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Edward Elgar Publishing

    (Publisher)

  97 8. Cities globalized Introduction: three globalizations Cities are politically subject to the states where they are located as shown in the previous chapter. But as also noted they operate within a different social logic where complex patterns of flows – of commodities, infor- mation and people – can and do spill over state boundaries. In the last hundred years or so these myriad flows have grown immensely, resulting in our current situation being famously designated by Manuel Castells as ‘network society’. Furthermore, the scale of flows has increased, with many more being global in scope, that is to say encompassing and integrating the whole world. This ‘global network society’ is coordinated through cities, doing work that transcends their own country’s borders. For instance, today much of the financial activities that take place in London have little or nothing to do with the British economy. What we are dealing with here are global political economies encom- passing two social logics, with different functions, generating contrasting spaces. The result is a bi-layered spatial structure; a political level of coordination through states – a space of places – and an economic level operating through cities – a space of flows. This globalization of human affairs began as an expansion of European activities, both political and economic, about 500 years ago, culminating in ‘global closure’ – meaning all settled territories politically and economically connected – by the beginning of the twentieth century. We came across this stage in Chapter 5 as cities demanding food from a global array of supply regions. This is imperial globalization, the first of three specific globalizations distin- guished by the way in which their worldwide economic connections are constituted.

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  Urban Empires

  Cities as Global Rulers in the New Urban World

  • Edward Glaeser, Karima Kourtit, Peter Nijkamp, Edward Glaeser, Karima Kourtit, Peter Nijkamp(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  McCann, P. & Z.J. Acs (2011), Globalization: Countries, Cities and Multinationals, Regional Studies 45 , 17–32. McCann, P. & R. Mudambi (2005), Analytical Differences in the Economics of Geography: The Case of the Multinational Firm, Environment and Planning A 37 , 1857–1876. Mitchell, W.J. (1995), City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn , The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Mudambi, R. (2008), Location, Control and Innovation in Knowledge-Intensive Industries, Journal of Economic Geography 8 , 699–725. Ohlin, B. (1933), Interregional and International Trade , Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Pred, A. (1977), City-Systems in Advanced Economies: Past Growth, Present Processes and Future Development Options , Hutchinson, London. Rose, J. (2016), The Well-Tempered City , Harper Wave, New York. Sassen, S. (2001), The Global City: New York, Tokyo, London , Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. Sassen, S. (2002) (Ed.), Global Networks: Linked Cities , Routledge, London. Soja, E.W. (2011), Regional Urbanization and the End of the Metropolis Era, in Bridge, G. & S. Watson (Eds.), The New Blackwell Companion to the City , Blackwell, Oxford, 679–689. Scott, A.J. (2001) (Ed.), Global City Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy , Oxford University Press, Oxford. Storper, M. & A.J. Venables (2004), Buzz: Face-to-Face Contact and the Urban Economy, Journal of Economic Geography 4 , 351–370. Taylor, P.J., G. Catalano & D.R.F. Walker (2002), Exploratory Analysis of the World City Network, Urban Studies 39 , 2377–2394. Teece, D.J., G. Pisano & A. Shuen (1997), Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management, Strategic Management Journal 18 , 509–533. Vernon, R. (1966), International Investment and International Trade in the Product Cycle, Quarterly Journal of Economics 80 , 190–207. Westlund, H. (2014), Urban Futures in Planning, Policy and Regional Science: Are We Entering a Post-Urban World? Built Environment 40 , 447–457.

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  The City as Action

  Retheorizing Urban Studies

  • Narendar Pani(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  2009 ).

  The distinction between the urban process and the places of the city is also reflected in the seemingly contradictory experiences of the global and the local. A focus on actions makes it clear that the global and the local may, in many ways, represent two different worlds, but in terms of what a person does, the two worlds not only coexist, but could also feed off each other. The people of a city are often a part of global processes even as they remain rooted in the local of everyday life. The processes of agglomeration that bring them to a city can be the result of global circuits. These circuits, and the agglomerations they generate, have the potential to link the most remote of villages to global brands. Workers can be drawn from remote parts of a country to work in the construction of campuses in cities of the global South, to house the technical manpower serving global information technology brands. Yet the workers constructing those campuses are likely to know very little about the global brands that the technical manpower serves. Their concerns in the city are likely to be much more local, whether it is the congested sheds they live in or the food they have to make do with. The participation of the individual worker in the city in both the global and the local domains would throw up a dilemma of whether we should treat the workers and, by extension the cities they are a part of, as a part of global or local processes. It is tempting to address this dilemma by beginning from one extreme or the other, say from the global of Planetary Urbanization to the local of Ordinary cities, and then find a way towards the middle. But once we move away from the clarity of the abstract extremes, how exactly do we determine when we are in the middle, and whether the middle is, in fact, where we should be. The middle may give the impression of academic balance, but does it tell us all that we want to know about the city? The method of actions finds a way out of this dilemma. By going beyond the individuals to their actions, it deals with both the global actions of an individual as well as her local actions. By treating the urban as the actions related to agglomeration and polarization, and their consequences, it recognises this as potentially a part of global processes. At the same time the actions related to the places of a city are local. The method of actions allows us to recognize the global in the urban even as we celebrate, and remember, all that is local in a city.

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