the

global
city
LESSON 8 | L. TECSON
Learning Objectives:
• Explain why globalization is a spatial phenomenon
• Identify the attributes of a global city
• Analyze how cities serve as engines of
globalization
3
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how they are

why are they
relevant to
important?
you?
Why Study Global Cities ?
Globalization is spatial – and this means two things:

A. Occurs in physical spaces

• Can be seen when foreign investments and capital move through a
city, and when companies build skyscrapers.

• People who work in these businesses start to purchase or rent high-

rise condominium units and better houses.

• As this happens, more poor people are driven out of city centers to
make new developments.
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Why Study Global Cities ?

B. It is based in places
“
Globalization is spatial because what makes it move is the fact that it
is based in places.

▪ Los Angeles, Home of Hollywood

▪ Tokyo, main headquarters of Sony

Cities act on globalization and globalization acts on cities, they are

the sites and channels of globalization, just like the media.
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Why Study Global Cities ?

In the coming years, more and more people will experience
globalization.

In the 1950, 30% of the world lives in urban areas

2014, the number increased to 54%

By 2050, estimated - global cities will increase to 66%

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Defining Global City
Saskia Sassen

• Popularized the term “global city”

• In the 1990s, her criteria for what constitutes a global city is
primarily economic.
• She primarily defined 3 global cities which are hubs of global
finance and capitalism: New York, London, and Tokyo
• NY: New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
• London: Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE)
• Tokyo: Nikkei
Defining Global City
Our discussion on Global Cities is not being limited in that 3
cities: recent commentators have expanded the criteria that
Sassen used – they consider:

▪ Los Angeles, a movie making mecca and can now rival New
York's cultural influence

▪ San Francisco, home of the most powerful internet

companies - Facebook, Twitter, and Google
Defining Global City
• Others consider something “global” because they are
great places to live in like Sydney, Australia.

• Defining a global city is difficult, a better question to

ask whether a city is global or not is:
“In what ways they are global cities?”
“To what extent are they global?”
 Economic economic power largely determines
Power which cities are global.

New York has the largest stock Shanghai may have smaller stocks,
market (217 company H/Q) but plays big role in economic supply
chain since China became
Tokyo houses the most number manufacturing center of the world
of corporate H/Q (613)

Economic opportunities also makes it attractive to the talents

from across the world.
 Based on these criteria,
To measure the economic competitiveness “tiny” Singapore is
of a city, the Economist Intelligence Unit considered Asia’s most
competitive city
has added other criteria like:
because of its strong
market, efficient and
✓ the market size incorruptible
government and
✓ purchasing power of the citizens livability.
✓ size of the middle class It also houses the
✓ potential for growth regional offices of many
major global
corporations.
 Centers of Presence of powerful political hubs – decision
Authority made affects the political economy

• Washington D.C. seat of the American State Power (the

White House, the Capitol Building…)
• Canberra, a sleepy town but Australia’s political capital
 Centers of HQ of Major International
Political Influence Organizations

Cities that house major international organizations also be

considered as centers of political influence

➢United Nations (New York)

➢European Union (Brussels)
➢ASEAN (Jakarta)
 a city's intellectual influence can be seen
Center for Higher through the influence of its publishing
Learning & Culture industries

• New York, London, Paris

• New York Times
• Harvard University in Boston
 Los Angeles, center of American Film Industry.
 Copenhagen, capital of Denmark, one of the culinary capitals of
the world, birthplace of New Nordic cuisine.
 Manchester, England known for its post-punk and New Wave
bands like Joy Division, the Smiths, the Happy Mondays.
 Singapore, becoming a cultural hub of Southeast Asia.
 Global cities are now more culturally diverse, an example is
having different type of cuisines from different parts of the world in
its vicinity.
The Challenges of Global Cities
Global cities There are also undersides
conjured up images like their place is a great
of fast-paced, sites of inequality,
exciting, poverty and violence.
cosmopolitan
lifestyles but such Like the broader process
descriptions are of globalization, global
lacking. cities also have winners
and losers.
PATHOLOGIES OF GLOBAL CITIES
▪ Cities can be sustainable because of their density.

As Florida notes: “Ecologists have found that by concentrating their

populations in smaller areas, cities and metros decrease human
encroachment on natural habitats. Denser settlement patterns yield
energy savings; apartment buildings, for example, are more efficient to
heat and cool than detached suburban houses.”

New Yorkers' low capita per carbon footprint is because of its train
system. Singapore and Tokyo also have low per capita carbon
footprints.
• Not all cities, however, are as dense as NY or Tokyo.
• Los Angeles are urban sprawls, with massive freeways that force residents to
spend money on cars and gas.

• Manila, Bangkok, and Mumbai are dense however the lack of public
transportation, and government's inability to regulate the car industries have
made them extremely polluted.

• Sheer size of city populations across the world, urban areas consume the
most of world's energy.

• Cities only cover 2% of the world's landmass but consumes the 78% of global
energy.

• Cutting of carbon emissions may affect food travel.

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An example solution is vertical farming

• Planting in abandoned buildings of cities,

more food can be grown in denser spaces
with lesser water, cities will be greener.

Terrorist Attacks

• Major terror attacks of recent years have also

targeted cities
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• 9/11 attacks that brought down the twin

towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

• In November 2015, coordinated attacks in

Paris by Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL)
.
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The Global City and the Poor

• Economic globalization has paved way for massive inequality this is
more pronounced in cities.

• An example is in Manila, it is common to find gleaming buildings,

alongside massive shantytowns. This duality may even be seen in
rich, urban cities

• Gentrification - driving out the poor in favor of the newer, wealthier

residents

• Banlieue - Poor Muslims that are forced out of Paris and have
clustered around ethnic enclaves.
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• The middle class is also thinning out.

• Globalization creates high-income jobs and this

creates a demand for unskilled labor force.

• Middle-income jobs are moving to other countries.

• Hollowing out of the middle class on global cities has

heightened the inequality among them.
 “A large global city may
thus be paradise for
some but a purgatory for
others.”