UNIVERSITY OF BAGUIO

GENERAL LUNA Rd. BAGUIO CITY

In Partial Fulfillment of Contemporary World

Mobility, Diversity and the Community in the Global City

(New York, Sydney, Tokyo and London)

Submitted to:

Mr. Brian Flores

Submitted by:

Alejandro, Angelo Kyle

Almosa, Jessie Lloyd
Almoza, Gean Claver
Flores, Ana Marie
Matias, Lailyn
Tabareng, Maysha
Introduction

The notion of “global city" has a central place in understanding contemporary

spatial patterns of globalization: the ways it impacts on local life is nowhere more
visible than in the global city. The global city is therefore the main physical and
geographic playground of the globalizing forces: in this space of population
concentration and mixing, the global flows of people, capital and ideas are woven
into the daily lived experiences of its residents. Cultural diversity, a key marker of
the global city and a consequence of human mobility and migration, is usually
detected on the surface as a “cosmopolitan feel": the global city's “natives“
encountering and engaging daily with a variety of immigrants and visitors. The
result is “cosmopolitan” consumption, “cosmopolitan” work culture, global
networking and “glocal" transnational community relations. Global city represents
and in many ways contains the world in a bounded space. This means that many
global problems, contradictions, hostilities and inequalities also find expression
amidst the teeming verve of the global city. Cosmopolitanism is a phenomenon
most readily associated with the global city: large, diverse cities attract people,
material and cultural products from all over the world. The idea of cosmopolitanism
usually invokes pleasant images of travel, exploration and “worldly" pursuits
enjoyed by those who have benefited from globalization and who can, in some
ways, consider themselves “citizens of the world". In the capitalist context, such
cosmopolitanism often focuses on consumption in global cities, where everyday
life is significantly shaped by commercial culture, retail and shopping. Ceaselessly
on offer is a cross- cultural variety of food, fashion, entertainment and various other
consumables and artefacts. The promise and allure of cosmopolitan consumption
is familiar to the dweller of any large twenty-first century city. To start from the most
visceral type of consumption, the availability of food from diverse culinary traditions
is taken for granted: a feature of the global city that can be seen, smelt and tasted,
and is always the first to feature in tourist brochures. The global city also provides
a cosmopolitan variety of cultural products, in order to attract and satisfy those with
cross-cultural curiosity keen to engage with "otherness", as well as immigrants who
fight their feeling of displacement by engaging with their “original cultures" through
movies, music and other events, in the company of their compatriots.

It is barely surprising that the idea of “global city” emerged in the social science
literature in the 1980s, shortly after the concept of globalization captured the social
scientific imagination, becoming one of its most powerful notional gravitational
pulls (Gilpin, 2000). However, the idea of global city was hardly new at the time,
and as a phenomenon, global cities, either as centers of imperial power or “free
cities" at the crossroads of international merchant routes, existed since ancient
times. More recently, the concept was preceded by the idea of “world city".
Roderick McKenzie, a Chicago academic, conceptualized a global network of cities
as in order to be able to imagine, observe and define global city, one first needs to
be able to imagine the world, the globe, as one entity.

This is not difficult today, with all its graphic, visual and conceptual representations,
and with a constant debate on “global issues” in the realm of economics, security
and the environment. Yet, arguing why and how the human globe, the global
society, is one, or should be one, remains difficult. Since the 1980s, when the
globalization paradigm started to dominate social sciences, it has produced
ongoing conceptual and ideological disputes. Conceptually, the meaning and
timing of globalization have been debated; ideologically, the apologists and critics
of globalization keep arguing about who benefits from the intensification of the
interconnectedness of economic, political, cultural and environmental processes
and transformations of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. During
this time, there have been attempts to shun the traditional approach of social
sciences as an obsolete “methodological nationalism" dictating a (nation-state)
“container model" of society, unfit for the “global age” where trans-nationalism,
porous borders and global interdependency were said to condition all social
processes and prompt social change (Faist, 2000; Wimmer and Glick-Schiller,
2003). While the nation-state no doubt remains a powerful institution shaping not
only global macro-processes but also everyday lives of its citizens, its power is
increasingly relative and steered by global forces, primarily economic in nature,
but also geo-political, cultural and environmental. Like many other phenomena of
the “global era", the global city also escapes the full control of the nation state —
although each global city is also a national city, its significance as a trans-national
and “cosmopolitan” hub goes beyond its “host nation". In fact, through global cities
the nation-states project their significance onto the global stage.

New York, London and Tokyo (and Sydney). This choice indicated that the criteria
for the status of the global city were, unsurprisingly, primarily economic: global
cities, according to Sassen, are the “command centres”, the main nodes of
triumphant global capitalism (even more triumphant and global after the fall of its
only real-life competitor — communism — at that time). Sassen (1991: 5) argued
that “the more globalized the economy becomes, the higher the agglomeration of
central functions in a relatively few sites“— that is, the global cities. Twenty years
later the three cities are still the main financial centres, and their respective stock
exchanges and indices — New York's Wall Street, London's “Footsie” (the informal
name for FTSE 100 Index of the largest listed companies) and Tokyo's Nikkei, are
concepts familiar even to those with no interest in global finance. Sharon Zukin
(1998: 826), taking a “cultural view" of the issue, put New York, London and Paris
at the top of the “urban cultural hierarchy" in terms of cultural innovation and ability
to attract visitors. Two decades after Sassen's (1991) book launched the concept,
other cities, primarily in up- and-coming Asia, started to enjoy the status of global
cities where primarily financial, but also other “productive services" such as
information technology, law and accountancy, are concentrated (Sassen, 1991: 5).
Therefore, the “things” that are produced in a global city are not primarily material:
large manufacturing agglomerations are now invariably placed outside global
cities, normally in the slum-ridden “megacities” of the “Third World”. In fact, it
seems that one of the conditions of the status of global city is to stop making things
and switch to handling and shifting money and ideas.

New York

Mobility
New Mobility in the past decade, New York City has seen a significant
growth of “new” and shared mobility services. In addition, the Citi Bike, the
country’s largest bike share system, New York City streets are now hosting ride-
hail services like Uber, Via, and Lyft as well as popular car sharing services, offered
by companies.
Beyond the rising number of for-hire vehicle registrations tracked in this report,
substantial growth of ride-hail services is evident in the share of all FHV trips that
they now represent. Annual trips by ride-hail services increased by 71% between
2016 and 2017. For the rst time, more trips were made by ride-hail than by taxis
and overall FHV trips grew by 21%. The Citywide Mobility Survey paints a clearer
picture of how residents interact with these services as well as how uptake and
usage patterns vary across the City.
Ride-Hail Trends:
• 35% of New Yorkers use ride-hailing services.
• Ride-hail services are most commonly used for social and recreational trips,
although 27% of respondents reported using them at some point for commuting.
• Respondents who reported having a disability are significantly more likely to use
ride-hail services several times a week than those who did not report a disability.
• Citywide, 50% of ride-hail users indicated that the service replaces trips
previously made by transit.
NYC DOT (2017)
 Conducted its first Citywide Mobility Survey in 2017. This online and
phone survey of thousands of New Yorkers across all five boroughs
aims to help the agency understand the specific factors and
experiences that drive transportation choices for City residents.
Mobility Survey, a phone and online questionnaire that was taken by thousands of
New Yorkers across all five boroughs. The Citywide Mobility Survey will be
repeated annually and allow NYC DOT to:
• Understand the factors and experiences that drive transportation choices for New
York City residents.
• Assess public views on the current state of transportation within the City.
• Establish an ongoing tracking program regarding mobility preferences and usage
patterns over time and throughout the City. Using a 40-question survey instrument,
NYC DOT collected data on mode choice, trip patterns, parking behavior, use of
ride-hailing apps and carsharing services, and household deliveries.
 Key Benchmarks:
• 67% of trips reported citywide were made without the use of a
private vehicle • 35% of New Yorkers report using ride-hailing
services
• 8% of survey respondents reported being members of car sharing
services
• 53% of car owners reported parking a least one car on street.

Diversity
The estimated population for New York City in 2016 is 8,550,405. This reflects
growth of 375,300 people, a 4.6% increase, since the 2010 census recorded 8.175
million residents.
The largest increase in New York City’s population occurred in the borough of
Brooklyn, which showed a population increase of 5.3% between the 2010 census
and 2016 estimates. The second largest change is in the Bronx, which reflected a
5.1% increase, followed by Queens (4.9%), Manhattan (3.7%) and Staten Island
(1.2%).
 Demographics
 In New York City, 44.6% of the population is white, 25.1% is
black, and 11.8% are of Asian descent. Hispanics of any race
represent about 27.5% percent of New York City’s population,
while those who are of Asian descent represented the fastest-
growing demographic between the years 2000 and 2010. As a
whole, the non-Hispanic white population of the city has
decreased by about 3 percent. For the first time since the end of
the Civil War, the percentage of blacks in the city has decreased
over the span of a decade.
 Language

 51.04% of New York City residents speak only English, while

48.96% speak other languages. The largest non-English
language is Spanish, which is spoken by 24.47% of the
population.

 Employment by Education
  Educational Attainment by Race

The tables above show different results on Employment by Education and Educational
Attainment of each race that signifies the diversity of New York City, the results are:
The highest rate of high school graduation is obtained by white people with a rate of
92.73% and their bachelor’s degrees with a rate of 56.55%. which do not intend for
racial issues since these white people are dominant in New York City itself.
 Sydney

Second half of the nineteenth century

The Gold Rush turned Melbourne, alongside Chicago, into the fastest growing
New World city. Melbourne reached half a million inhabitants in the 1880s and by 1890 it
entered the league of the top 20 largest cities in the world. As the Gold Rush ended,
Melbourne stagnated and Sydney gradually took over as the largest Australian city. After
the 1901 federation of the British colonies in Australia into a unified new nation, the
Commonwealth of Australia, the rivalry between the two cities developed as a permanent
feature of the economic and cultural landscape. At federation, it could not be decided
which city was to serve as the federal capital and a new city Canberra had to be built for
that purpose Melbourne served as the Australian capital in the meantime.
Beginning of the twenty-first century
Melbourne had another growth spurt at the beginning of the twenty-first century,
when it surpassed Sydney in terms of its immigrant inflows. “Greater Melbourne”
recorded the largest growth of all capital cities between 2001 and 2011 Censuses,
increasing by 647,200 people in this period, followed by the “Greater Sydney”, which was
up by 477,600 people. In the 2011 Census the two cities were very close in terms of their
population, four million in Melbourne and 4.4 million in Sydney.

Community
Sydney has the proportionately highest number of rich residents, but no smaller
proportion of homeless people than Melbourne. Baum (1997) argued that the polarizing
forces of globalization exerted considerable influence in Sydney, as the city is the most
integrated into the global economy among major Australian cities, primarily through the
presence of US and European multinational corporations' Asia-Pacific regional
headquarters.
According to a General Deprivation Index constructed on the basis of 16 select Census
variables. It is noticeable from Baum's (2008) more recent analysis based on the 2006
Australian Census that Sydney has considerably more noticeable socioeconomic spatial
polarization, that is, a larger number of both richest and most disadvantaged suburbs than
Melbourne, and any other Australian city for that matter.
Over recent years, Sydney has regularly featured on various “global city lists”, unlike
Melbourne. In spite of their similar populations and economic outputs, as well as the fact
that most socio-economic indicators for the two cities gleaned from the most recent (2011)
Census are comparable, over the past decades Sydney has achieved the “first name
familiarity” and “single-photo recognizability” because of its famous landmarks:
Sydney Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge that Melbourne seems to lack.
Sydneysiders are marginally richer than Melbournians and somewhat more diverse in
the ethno-cultural sense, but the differences are not significant. By their economic
outputs, types of industries represented and the diversity and mobility of their populations,
as well as the number of immigrant settlers they attract, both cities can easily claim their
place in the global cities league.

The Global University City Index

4 Main Criteria
1. “Global university recognition” - there should be at least two high profile
universities in the city, with at least five per cent of international students in the
city's student population and an ability to attract offshore research investment at
the level of at least five per cent
2. “Amenity”
a. liveability- being ranked in the top 100 liveable cities
b. connectivity- the prevalence of Internet use
c. population scale- in order to qualify a city must be larger than two million
people to ensure scale, diversity and vibrancy.
3. “Research inputs and performance”- consisting of “expenditure on research
and development” as percentage of GDP expenditure; patent grants and
applications per million residents; and commercialization of research in the form of
royalties and licence fees
4. “Education inputs and performance”- measured by GDP expenditure on higher
education, student numbers and graduations

Diversity
With its attractive and diverse natural environment and glamorous city landmarks,
Sydney serves as one of the primary attractions for overseas visitors and the Australian
port of entry for the largest number of overseas arrivals. Melbourne's attractiveness is
considered more subdued and “sophisticated” – Melbourne for tourists and other
visitors is often presented as a gastronomic Mecca but also an artistic city. Apart from a
vibrant formal arts scene, with many theatres, galleries and museums and art festivals, it
also claims to be the global “street art capital”. The city centre, in its many narrow lanes,
indeed features an impressive “permanent transience” of graffiti and murals, a living urban
exhibition being continuously “reassembled” at random short intervals for the enjoyment,
wonder and sometimes also outrage, of visitors and locals. A peculiar distinction of the
street art is that it has long balanced on a thin line between the outlawed “vandalism” of
the city building's façades and a legitimate and democratic expression of its creative
bohemians and subalterns who have been unable, or unwilling, to penetrate the “official”
arts scene which, in its own way, exists in a contradictory space straddling subversion,
commercialization and status-consciousness. Just like in its demography, diversity is the
key word here: a large city, and especially a “metropolitan area” is really many urban
communities in one, offering different forms and varied contents of multicultural
education, entertainment, cultural tourism and urban adventure. The variety of
“cosmopolitan” cultural diversity is the key to activeness of both cities
The diversity of the two cities is composed of slightly different elements. For Melbourne,
the main source countries in the 2011 Census were UK (166,000), India (107,000), China
(91,000), Italy (69,000), New Zealand/Vietnam (67,000), while the top five origins for
Sydney's overseas population were England (152,000), China (149,000), India (88,000),
New Zealand (85,000) and Vietnam (70,000).

Mobility
The high mobility in the two cities is represented by large temporary and transient
populations of international students at seven universities in Melbourne and five in
Sydney; young travellers in Australia known as “working holidaymakers”, a visa
category on a steep rise since its introduction in the 1990s. Working holidaymakers come
to Australia from 27 countries and represent capitalism's dream workforce: educated,
enthusiastic, cheap and flexible, that is, easily hired and fired. Other temporary migrant
categories, including the controversial “skilled 457 visa” bringing in a category of “guest
workers” on four-year visas since 1996, are also growing. Tourists and short-term family
visitors are a constant visible presence in the two cities. Like most “New World” cities,
Sydney and even more Melbourne, are “low density” cities: “Greater Melbourne”
occupies 9990 km2, which translates into a population density of 400 people per km2.
High mobility within metropolitan areas coupled with high car dependence causes both
cities to suffer from traffic congestion. Sydney's traffic is notorious in this respect and
Melbourne's woes are only marginally smaller. The HILDA Survey (Housing and Labour
Dynamics Australia) shows that commuting times in the metropolitan areas are fast
growing in the first decade of the twenty-first century. A large majority of drivers are
frustrated with having to commute for more than one hour each day on average. This is
a steadily decreasing element of both cities' liveability – a problem that they share
with all other large and affluent, automobile-dependent cities.

Tokyo

Mobility
A partnership between Mori Building Company and Via has resulted in the launch of an
on-demand transit service in Tokyo, providing the city with a new transportation
solution. Mori’s Tokyo service is the first in Japan to introduce Via’s dynamic on-demand
shared rides. Via’s technology is currently operating around the globe with projects in
the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and beyond. Via’s vision
is to provide cutting-edge mobility solutions that are smart, efficient and help to reduce
congestion and emissions globally,” said by Daniel Ramot, co-Founder and CEO of Via.
In the Japanese market, Via has been able to integrate with existing fixed-route
transportation infrastructure, filling gaps where existing transit isn’t easily accessible,
using a system that efficiently works to collect multiple passengers into shared vehicles.
This reduces single-occupancy vehicle trips, improves traffic congestion and
lessens carbon emissions.
Community
The word “globalization” is used with increasing frequency these days. Japan and the
Japanese/ Nihonjin people have not escaped the effects of globalization. In fact,
precisely because of its history as a “closed” nation during the Tokugawa Period
(1600-1867), Japan provides a particularly interesting case study for the way in which a
nation has, upon opening itself to the outside world, the city adapted to the demands and
expectations of that world and developed its own place in the global community. It is in
this respect that more and more ordinary people are becoming aware of the world around
them and are starting to make use of the access they have to the economies, politics and
culture of the world in which they live. advanced industrial countries are moving from
economies based on manufacturing and industry to economies based on the production,
manipulation and dissemination of information. This is widening the gaps between rich
and poor, impacting on the structure of labor markets, and having a knock-on effect on
family and social organization.
Diversity
From the history of Japanese emigration, the diversification of employment, women’s
work and educational reform. This are the impact of globalization in contemporary Japan.
Apart from their economic importance, the visible cultural and community features of
global cities are also relevant for their global role. Global cities are home to a diverse and
visible set of protagonists of the “urban lifestyle”:
artists, bohemians, new media designers, gay and youth subcultures, university
students and immigrants, creating a remarkable and also highly visible “ethnic” and
cultural diversity. These groups with their more of less “alternative” and eclectic lifestyles
have a natural home in “global cities”, and exert a singular influence in defining various
urban subcultures, often giving character to certain areas within big cities.
“Transform Tokyo into a global business center that attracts human
resources, capital & information from around the world, to further enhance the
city’s vitality.”
Tokyo’s high technology and manufacturing specialisms are key sources of
confidence & dynamism for the city. “Tokyo is a strategic and political level of
administrative and policy -making extending beyond the administrative boundaries of a
single urban local government authorities to include urban and or/ semi-urban.”- Mark
Tewders- Jones and Donald McNeill 2000. Tokyo was ranked the world’s most creative
country. Some reason why Tokyo is one of the world cities is because of banking and
finance. Tokyo has 10 of the world’s largest banks, and has the world’s second largest
bank, with holdings of $2.4 trillion. Also Tokyo is one of the center of world trade and
communications, headquarters of non-government organizations and major tourist
destination.
According to Sassen, S. (1991), global cities are characterized by occupational and
income polarization, with the highly paid professional class on the one end and providers
of low-paid services on the other. Sassen identified only three global cities, one of this is
Tokyo. This choice indicated that the criteria for the status of the global city were
unsurprisingly, primarily economic. Sassen described the three global cities as
“command centres”, the main nodes of triumphant global capitalism. Twenty years later
the three cities are still the main financial centers, and their respective stock exchanges
and indices.
The cities that are chosen because of the six criteria and because of their “magnetism”,
a comprehensive power to attract creative people and excellent companies from around
the world amidst accelerated interurban competition
In the twenty-first century, the list of global cities expanded to encompass cities across
Asia, and few cities in other parts of the world. According to Japanese Mori Foundation's
Global
Power City Index, the global power of cities is measured by a combination of six criteria:
 Economy
 Research and Development
 Cultural Interaction
  Livability
 Environment
 Accessibility

Despite not experiencing a rise in score as high as the top 2 cities (London and New
York), Tokyo still manages to maintain its seat at #3. In Livability, the city enters the top
10 as it sees improvement in the indicator Total Working Hours. Although Tokyo reaches
#3 in the Economy function due to better scores in indicators such as GDP Growth Rate,
it receives relatively low scores for Commitment to Climate Action, dropping from #12 to
#29 in Environment. Should Tokyo enhance its results in Environment, which is the only
function where it ranks outside of the top 10, the city would likely become more balanced
in comprehensive power.

London

As a leading global city, London is often on the frontline of the world’s social
changes and challenges. As the city become an increasingly diverse society,
Londoners’ ability to embrace change and celebrate diversity should rightly be a point of
pride. However, unless there is social integration, diversity can become a source of
division. Prosperity, wellbeing, health and security are threatened when communities feel
alienated and isolated. Conversely, effective social integration means people can develop
connections and shared identities which incorporate their differences and ensure diversity
remains a strength.
“As the Mayor of London, I am proud to represent such a forward-looking,
dynamic, global city. London today is one of the most diverse cities in the world with more
than 300 languages spoken on our streets and every faith freely practiced”. ( Mayor of
London, Sadiq Khan )
Community
Through continuous community engagement, City Hall is seeking to understand
how social integration is experienced by Londoners. A series of events and discussions
with communities across London65 offered important insights into Londoners’
experiences and their ideas on improving social integration. They helped inform this
strategy. The Mayor’s Citizen Led Engagement Program will continue to help City Hall
understand people’s experiences of and views on social integration. Engagement to date
highlighted many positive examples of social integration already happening in London.
Participants talked about the ways in which sport, volunteering, culture, food and
experiences of parenting had brought them together with diverse Londoners. Many see
London as a successful city for diversity and openness. One Londoner had “gained a lot
of knowledge of culture and religion” and “school friends and neighbors from all over the
world.” Conversations also revealed that for some Londoners, everyday life is full of
questions about how and when to engage with others. Many are uncertain about which
forms of social interaction will be welcomed. As one young man commented: “Sometimes
I am not sure if I should help a mum if her baby falls. People are scared to get involved in
situations as they don’t know how that help will be taken.” But interactions with people
from different backgrounds can be important and powerful ways to build connections. We
learned about the kinds of experiences which help Londoners challenge their negative
assumptions about others and become more connected. These include developing new
relationships at work, getting to know neighbors, and being involved in activities in their
community – from arts programmers to local campaigning.
Social Integration 4 parts:
 Relationships - promoting shared experiences
 Participation - supporting Londoners to be active citizens
 Equality - tackling barriers and inequalities
 Evidence - gathering evidence to measure and evaluate the state of social
integration in London
Diversity
London’s environment connects every aspect of life in the city. It is the air
Londoners breathe, the water they drink and the parks where they meet and spend time.
The state of London’s environment affects everyone who lives in and visits the city – it
helps Londoners to stay healthy, allows businesses to thrive and keeps London
functioning from day to day.
In many ways, London’s environment is improving. The city’s air and water
have recovered from the worst impacts of industrial pollution. Greenhouse gas emissions,
which cause climate change, are reducing. The city is well-defended against the worst
forms of flooding. But London also faces a range of environmental challenges that
threaten the future of the city.
Air quality, the quality of London’s air is dangerously – and illegally – poor. High levels
of damaging pollutants harm human health and quality of life, limiting lung development
in childhood and reducing life expectancy. Over 9,000 Londoners’ lives end sooner than
they should each year because of air pollution, and around 20 per cent of primary schools
are located in parts of London that breach legal air pollution limits. Air quality is the most
pressing environmental threat to the future health of London.
Green space, as development encroaches on open space and gardens have increasingly
been paved over, there has been a gradual loss of green space across London in recent
years. Some parts of London have more green spaces than others, but almost half of
Londoners have poor access to parks. Councils now have less money to spend on
maintaining parks, so their quality has declined in some places. Access to good quality
green space and living in greener neighborhoods can have a big impact on people’s
health and quality of life, and on how attractive a place London is in which to live, visit
and do business.
Biodiversity, as green space has been lost and what remains has in some cases reduced
in quality, the range of plants and animals that live in London has decreased. With careful
attention, London can be home to a wide range of animal and plant species, but without
it, the number and diversity of bird, wildflower and bee species will continue to decline.
For the first time, this strategy brings together approaches to every aspect of
London’s environment, kick starting action that will improve the city’s environment right
away, while taking the most ambitious view of what is possible in the future. It makes new
connections between the environment and the rest of life in London. Recognizing that the
environment has a big influence on the quality of Londoners’ lives, it has people and their
experience of living, working and spending time in the city at its heart.
Mobility
London is one of the most entrepreneurial, international and outward-looking cities
in the world. Its dynamism and diversity make it one of the most attractive places in which
to live and work. It is home to people from every corner of the globe, to a huge variety of
unique neighborhoods and public spaces and to some of the world’s leading cultural
attractions. Transport networks make the city what it is – connecting communities,
opening up opportunities and creating the conditions for London’s global economy to
flourish. The transport system also shapes Londoners’ everyday lives – how much
physical activity they do, how long and pleasant their daily journeys to work, to school
and around town are, and even where they choose to live. Careful planning can enable
millions of individual decisions to work together in a way that creates a healthy and
environmentally sustainable city.
Most people already use public transport regularly, but too often Londoners are
not getting the quality of experience they are entitled to expect. Unreliable rail services
make journey times unpredictable, wasting people’s time and even threatening their
livelihoods. Overcrowding on rail and Tube networks has a big impact on people’s lives –
often making large portions of people’s daily routine unpleasant and stressful – and can
deter some people from using public transport at all.
High-quality public transport services that connect seamlessly to other forms of
active, efficient and sustainable travel are required across the city to provide alternatives
to car use. Looking at our transport system as a single, connected whole is the key to
addressing London’s current and future challenges.
 Analysis
Global Cities, Social Change and “Liquid Life” Outside the advertising discourse of
tourist brochures and the upbeat rhetoric of local politicians, the super-diverse global
cities are places that harbor many contradictions. On the one hand, they are places where
the forces of capitalist neo-liberal globalization have their stronghold, but on the other
hand they are crucibles of social change where existing political, social and ideological
categories and relationships are being constantly challenged and transformed by
alternative lifestyles, ideas and movements. Wherever one stands in the structure vs.
agency debate, it is clear that people and their local communities are not mere puppets
of the powerful global economic and political forces. While globalization endangers the
livelihoods of individuals, groups and even nations, it also offers many opportunities, and
these are concentrated in global cities. People therefore flock to these nodes of global
economy and society looking for business and work opportunities, excitement, adventure,
change, creative pursuits, education and various “cosmopolitan” experiences. Yet, not
everyone finds luck, success and fulfilment in global cities. Apparently, and in spite of
victorious discourse of its apologists, the hyper-competitive capitalist globalization
inevitably creates winners and losers. Some people have more agency than others, and
more power to withstand structural forces pushing them in a certain direction due to their
gender, ethnicity, socio-economic background, education, age group, and other
“determinants”. The face that the global city first shows to visitors and settlers is usually
the dazzling face of affluence, historic glory and “culture”, but some of them will inevitably
experience the dark side of the global city.
In order to understand the social dynamics of the global city, it is important to keep
in mind the “regular” categories of winners and losers in the competitive capitalist system,
rather than its accidental victims. According to many authors, the winners in the global
city are those who take it on with consider able financial or human capital: money or
knowledge. Social capital — a network of useful connections — is also very helpful. Many
have argued that the distance between winners and losers seems to be increasing
socially, but also geographically and residentially. In terms of global cities, they
themselves win and lose, wax and wane depending on whether they can attract
innovative workforce and the right kinds of immigrants. Paraphrasing Bauman's (2005: 1)
argument, it can be said that the winners of capitalist globalization are those individuals,
communities, cities and nations that can cultivate the ultimate virtue of flexibility in the era
of “liquid modernity” — the society where the frenetic pace of innovation and change
makes the “conditions under which its members act change faster than it takes the ways
of acting to consolidate into habits and routines" and where “a pool of choices” at the
same time represents a “hotbed of uncertainties“ (Bauman, 2007: 1).
Those armed with globally recognized professional credentials, entrepreneurial spirit and
cross- cultural competence are the ultimately desirable “human capital" and the paragons
of the “liquid life": the model residents of global cities (Colic-Peisker, 2010). But those
who are not thus endowed, and perhaps coming from distant hinterlands without
educational and urban skills, may struggle to keep afloat in the liquid modernity of the
global city. They may end up as unintentionally flexible workforce in poorly paid, uncertain
causal jobs, or undocumented arrivals left to the mercy of their employers and those
providing their accommodation, sometimes working in underground industries and in
Third World conditions, lingering on the social and economic margins of the city. In spite
of the accolades given to the “knowledge workers" and innovators, the global city, and
globalization itself, could not work without those who end up fulfilling the unglamorous but
nonetheless indispensable “low skilled services.
The city lights have always attracted and will continue to attract the young, the hopeful
and the entrepreneurial, and the cities will always be the history-making places. In the
early twenty-first century, one half of humankind lives in urban areas and this proportion
is bound to increase. However, the growth of cities comprises very different pathways:
affluent global cities, able to attract financial and human capital, will continue their planned
growth to increase their livability and global significance, and the gap between them and
the chaotic, slum-ridden megacities of the Third World is likely to become wider as a
consequence of capitalist globalization.
References:
Colic-Peisker, V. et al. (2014). The sage handbook of globalization. Approaches to the
Study of
Globalization, 598-602. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781473906020.n1
About DOT. (18, June). Retrieved October 22, 18, from
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/about/mobilityreport.shtml
New York City, New York Population 2018. (18, June). Retrieved October 22, 18, from
http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/new-york-city-population/
Danish,Mohd. (2016, Junuary 16). Tokyo as Global City Region. Retrieved from
www.slideshare.net/mohddanish18/tokyo-as-a-global-city-region?
Stegar, M. B., Jiracusa. J. M., & Battersby, P. (Eds.). (2014). The Sage Handbook of
Globalization: Mobility, Diversity and Community in the Global City. London: SAGE
Publication Ltd.
GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN, edited by J.S.
Eades, Tom Gill and Harumi Befu. Trans Pacific Press, Melbourne, 2000. 295 pp., 3,250
yen (paper).
Global Power City Index 2018. (n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2018, from http://mori-m-
foundation.or.jp/english/ius2/gpci2/index.shtml
WhatWeDo(2018)Integration, Transport, and Environment at:
https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do
Intelligent Transport. 3 August 2018.On-demand shared mobility arrives in Tokyo due to
Via’s new partnership. retrevied from https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-
news/70255/shared-mobility-tokyo-via/