THE GLOBAL CITY

London, United Kingdom

New York, USA
Tokyo, Japan
Why Study Global Cities?

• The city as we know it has changed dramatically

over the course of time. Apparent changes in

technology, cultural exchanges and migration as

well as economic progress and personal social

mobility has changed the concept of the city.

Cities are ecosystems for businesses and

innovation...... (Kearney, 2017)

• With the onslaught of Globalization, we are

introduced to a more profound concept, that of

the Global city. Within the past two decades, the

city has emerged as a critical site for analyzing

dynamic and dialectic articulations of global

and local processes..... (Scott, 2001)

• This meeting (in the global cities) of the global

and the local has made cities mediums and

arenas of globalization wherein global, national,

and local processes and forces encounter each

other, merge, and create a new politics of place-

making under the conditions of globalizing

capitalism.(Genis, 2007)
 GLOBALIZATION is SPATIAL
FIRST, globalization is spatial because it occurs in
physical spaces.

SECOND, globalization is spatial because what

makes it move is the fact that it is based in
places.
What is Global Cities?
• A global city, also known by other terminologies as
“alpha city” or “world center” is a city regarded as a
primary node in the global economic network.
(Alderson and Beckfield, 2004)

• It pertains to an urban center that enjoys significant

competitive advantages and that serves as a hub
within a globalized economic system. (Brenner, 1998)
The term “global city” was
popularized by Saskia Sassen
in 1990’s where she held that
“a global city serves as an
important focal point for
business, global trade, finance,
tourism, and globalization to
exist”.
Saskia Sassen

Born: 5th January 1947

Saskia Sassen is the leading urban theorist of the

global world. Her, The Global City: New York,

London, Tokyo (1991) has shaped the concepts and

methods that other theorists have used to analyze

the role of cities and their networks in the
contemporary world.
• In her work, she initially identified three global cities
: New York, London, and Tokyo, all of which are
hubs of global finance and capitalism.

• New York – New York Stock Exchange US$22.9 trillion

• London – Financial Time Stock Exchange US$4.9 trillion

• Tokyo – Nikkei 225 US$5.67 trillion

• However, the global economy has changed
significantly since Sassen wrote her book, and
any account of the economic power of cities
today must take note of the latest developments
Example of Cities

• Movie-making mecca Los Angeles can now be

rival the Big Apple’s cultural influence

• San Francisco is the home of the most

powerful internet companies-Facebook, Twitter,
and Google.

• China opened the Shanghai Stock Exchange in

late 1990’s and since then, it has grown to
become the fifth largest stock market in the
world.
Indicators of Globality
• ECONOMIC POWER

New York – Largest stock market

Tokyo – Most corporate headquarters

613 companies ( 217 New York)

China – Manufacturing center of the world

Shanghai- busiest container port 33M
container in 2013
• ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES

Many of the top IT Programmers and Engineers

from Asia moves to San Francisco Bay Area because
of Silicon Valley’s technology boom
• ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS
Market Size, Purchasing Power, Size of the
Middle Class, & Potential Growth

“Tiny” Singapore is considered Asia’s most

competitive city because of its strong market,
efficient and incorruptible government, and livability.
• CENTER OF AUTHORITY

Washington D.C is the seat of American state power

ang its landmarks like the White House, the Capitol
Building (Congress), the Supreme Court, the Lincoln
Memorial and the Washington Monument.

Canberra in Australia may not be as famous as

Sydney and Melbourne, but it is the home of the
country’s top politicians, bureaucrats, and policy advi
sors.
• HOUSES THE MAJOR
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

New York – United Nations (Headquarters)

Brussels -European Union

Jakarta – ASEAN (Headquarters)

Frankfurt – European Central Bank

• CENTERS OF HIGHER LEARNING AND CULTURE

New York – New York Times Magazine

Boston – Harvard University

Australia – leading English-language Universities

Los Angeles –center of the American Film industry

Copenhagen- one of the culinary capitals of the world

The Challenges of Global Cities

• Global cities conjure up images of fast-paced,

exciting, cosmopolitan lifestyle however global
cities has their undersides. They can be sites of
great inequality and poverty as well as tremendous
violence. Like the broader process of globalization,
global cities create winners and losers.
• As Richard Florida notes: “Ecologists have found
that by concentrating their populations in smaller
areas, cities and metros decrease human
encroachment on natural habitats. Moreover, in
cities with extensive public transportation
systems, people tend to drive less and thereby
cut carbon emissions.
New Yorkers have the lowest per capita carbon footprint in
the United States largely because of the city’s extensive
train system. In Asia, Singapore and Tokyo have relatively
low per capita carbon footprints.

However, not all cities are dense like New York or Tokyo.
Los Angeles are urban sprawls, with massive freeways that
force residents to spend money on cars and gas.
Cities like Manila, Bangkok, and Mumbai are dense
however their lack of public transportation and their
governments’ inability to regulate their cars industries
have made them extremely polluted.
More importantly, because of the sheer size of city
populations across the world, it is not surprising that
urban areas consume most of the world’s energy.
Cities only cover 2% of the world’s landmass, but
they consume 78% of global energy.
• The major terror attacks of recent years have also
targeted cities. Cities, especially those with global in
fluence, are obvious targets for terrorists due to
their high populations and their role as symbols of
globalization that many terrorists despise.

For an instance, the 9/11 attacks that brought down

the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New

York and the November 2015 attack in Paris by ISIL

The Global City and the Poor

• We have consistently noted that economic

globalization has paved the way for massive
inequality. This phenomenon is thus very
pronounced in cities.
For instance:

• Large cities like those in Scandinavia, have

found ways to mitigate inequality through
state-led social redistribution programs.

• Mumbai, Jakarta and Manila, it is common

to find gleaming buildings alongside
massive shantytowns. This duality may even
be seen in rich, urban cities.
• In the outskirts of New York and San Francisco are
poor urban enclaves occupied by African-Americans
and immigrant families who often denied
opportunities at a better life. They are being forced
to move farther from the economic center to
attract more capital and richer residents, this
phenomenon of driving out the poor to favor new
and wealthier residents are called gentrification.
• In Australian cities, poor aboriginal Australians
have been most acutely affected by this process.
Once living in public urban housing, they were
forced to move farther away from city centers
that offer more jobs, more government services,
and better transportation due to gratification.
• In France, poor Muslim migrants are forced
out of Paris and have clustered around ethnic
enclaves known as banlieue.
• In most of the world’s global cities, the middle class
is also thinning out. Many middle-income jobs in
manufacturing and business process outsourcing are
moving to other countries. This hollowing out of the
middle class in global cities has heightened the
inequality within them.

In New York, the children of American investment

bankers are raised by Filipina maids.
Conclusion

Global cities, are sites and mediums of globalization.

They are, therefore, materials representations of the
phenomenon. Through them, we see the best of
globalization; they are places that create exciting
fusions of culture and ideas. They are also places
that generate tremendous wealth.
However, they remain sites of great inequality, where
global servants serve global entrepreneurs. The
question of how globalization can be made more
just is partly a question of how people make their
cities more just.