Photo: Simon Turner

Global cities - the urban age

 1: Exploring global cities

Urban age project http://lsecities.net/ua/

1.1: Introducing global cities
Hamlet Small collection of homes – population 10-

Village
100
Rural in character?
An
Population less than 10,000
Urban area Defined by land use? E.g. 75% built up; by
function?
urban
Town Larger than a village but smaller than a city
With town charter!
hierarchy
Less than 100,000 population?
City Legal status in some countries
Over 100, 000?
Conurbation Urban area incorporating adjacent centres
e.g. former free-standing towns and
villages. After Geddes 1915
Metropolis Large urban agglomeration, usually over 1
million?
Millionaire city By definition, over 1 million
Megacity Urban metropolis over 10 million
Megalopolis Chain of adjacent metropolitan areas. After
Mumford 1938 The Culture of Cities
World or global A global centre for finance, culture,
city political influence (Sassen 1990s)
Eperopolis ‘Continental city’ after Doxiadis 1968
 City limits?
London commuting The London plan
Richard
Florida
‘Megalopolis’
Eperopolis or Ecumenopolis
Doxiadis 1968
Changing distribution of cities

www.worldkit.org/population

www.citypopulation.de/world/Agglomerations.html
 China: ‘Enter the dragon’

• Most rapid rural-to-urban • Net addition ½ billion urban

transition in human history. population
• Under 20% urban 1970 to • Accounting for ¼ of global
over 50% by 2020 economic growth by 2030
 1.2 Defining a global city
• Command points in the organisation of the
world economy
• Key locations and marketplaces for
finance and specialised services
• Major sites of production, including
innovations

• Around 70 worldwide Sassen Cities in a world economy

Command points in the world economy
Key locations and marketplaces

Competitive cities http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23937216-

hands-off-barclays-boris-johnson-warns-new-york-mayor-michael-bloomberg.do
Major sites of production
 Centres of innovation
• Major information and communication centres
• Access to the largest markets (for specialist and mass
consumption)
• Competitive environment requires business to innovate
• Encourage formal and informal interaction between wide
range of financial, managerial, technical, marketing and
trade skills and experience
• Diverse networks, information loops produce knowledge
capital.
• Global capitalism demands such knowledge
• Even a low innovation success rate leads to a virtuous circle of
innovation and success.

Adapted from Wood, P. (2004) Discovering Cities - Central London GA

www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/gcmm.cfm#map3
2: The challenge of global cities
2.1Urbanisation and development

“for many poor nations, urbanisation has little to do with industrialisation,

but rather is linked with the creation of jobs in the service sector”
(Potter 2008)
Inequality within cities
 Life in 21st Century Cities
“we have reached the end
of an era of association of
urbanisation with Western
style industrialisation and
socio-economic
characteristics”
(Dwyer)
2.2 Urbanisation and the environment
London’s ecological footprint

• 125 times its own

area to provide the
resources it
consumes
• 197,500 sq km
• UK has 210,000
sq km productive
surface
www.citylimits.com
www.capitalwastefacts.com
 Another view of London
• 8% of UK carbon
emissions
• 12% of population
• 20% of GDP
• Lower waste per
capita
• Less water and
electricity per £1
gross value added
• Lower CO2 per £1
gross value added

Employment 1971-2030
 Ecopolis now?
• city builders "worshipped at the altar of the
automotive god, and idealised mobility and
freedom” Peter Hall, professor of planning
and regeneration UCL
• “to improve the social and environmental
condition of cities the top priority is to cut
car use”
The urban consumer

www.citylimits.com
 1 Newcastle

Assessing 2 Leicester

3 Brighton

sustainability 4
5
Bristol
London

• Environmental impact – in 6 Leeds

7 Coventry
terms of resource use
and pollution 8 Plymouth

9 Edinburgh
• Quality of life – what the
10 Sheffield
city is like for people to
11 Cardiff
live in
12 Nottingham
• Future-proofing – how 13 Manchester
well the city is preparing 14 Liverpool

for a sustainable future 15 Birmingham

16 Sunderland

17 Derby
http://www.forumforthefuture.org/
18 Bradford

19 Glasgow

20 Hull
 London’s future footprint
Household waste Transport
Photo: Alan Kinder