GLOBAL CITY

LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:
1. define Global City;
2. identify the attributes of a global city; and
3. analyze how cities serve as engines of globalization

Cities play global roles because challenges they face are global in nature…
Ivo Daalder (@IvoHDaalder) June 1, 2016

This Module presents the nature of a global city, its typical characteristics, types of global
cities, and criticisms of global city.

(New York City as a global city)

Cities are centers of innovation and businesses. They portray the economic, social, and
political state of the country and its people. Cities are categorized differently depending on the
role they play on the global scene. Although the city of Tokyo is the largest in the world with a
population of about 38,000,000, it is considered an Alpha + city, one level below the cities of
New York and London which are considered Alpha ++ cities. Other Alpha + cities include
Shanghai, Tokyo, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris, and Beijing.
To be considered a global city, an urban center must prove it enjoys a significant global
advantage over other cities and serves as a hub within the world economic system. Initially,
global cities were ranked depending on their size. Today, several other factors other than the
size of the city are being considered. Amsterdam, Houston, Mexico City, Paris, São Paulo and
Zurich have all grown to be global cities. These cities possess several similar characteristics
including Home to several financial service providers and institutions, headquarters to large
multinationals, dominate the trade and economy of their countries and are a major hub for air,
land and sea transport. They are also centers of innovation, boast of well-developed
infrastructure, large population of employed people and act as the centers of communication of
global news.

Global City (a video clip: Global Cities: Introduction)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfUH2DKUoeI

Global City
Global city, an urban center that enjoys significant competitive advantages and that serves
as a hub within a globalized economic system
The use of "global city", as opposed to "megacity", was popularized by sociologist Saskia
Sassen in her 1991 work, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo though the term "world
city" to describe cities that control a disproportionate amount of global business dates to at
least the May 1886 description of Liverpool by The Illustrated London News. Patrick Geddes
also used the term "world city" later in 1915. Cities can also fall from such categorization, as in
the case of cities that have become less cosmopolitan and less internationally renowned in the
current era.
A number of studies were undertaken to produce various rankings. However, when you look
at them, you see that the definition of global city used is far broader than Sassen’s core version.
Some of the general characteristics people tend to refer to when talking about global cities. It
cites a very lengthy list, but some of them are:

1. Home to major stock exchanges and indexes

2. Influential in international political affairs
3. Home to world-renowned cultural institutions
4. Service a major media hub
5. Large mass transit networks
6. Home to a large international airport
7. Having a prominent skyline
New global cities have since arisen not only as financial centers but also producers of
services that are global in scope. Global cities are post-industrial and manufacturing has been
scattered across national and global networks. It turns from “landscapes of production” to
“landscapes of consumption”.

Apart from being financial centers, global cities are:

1. Geopolitical power centers
2. Cultural and trendsetting powerhouses
3. Higher education hubs
4. Creative Industries
5. Nature of activities generates a specific labor demand:
6. A professional class of knowledge workers
7. Highly mobile, career minded not necessarily elites
8. “Brain hubs” and centers of a “knowledge economy”
9. Economies of scale and concentration necessary despite the proliferation of
communications technology

Global City (a video clip: What is a global city?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJekil09KA8

WHY GLOBAL CITIES MATTER?

Global cities play an increasingly important role at the global and regional level: From Asia to
Africa, from South and North America to Europe, large urban centers enjoy significant
competitive advantages and serve as primary nodes in the globalized economic system. They
interact with states and other international actors, pursue objectives that are often intertwined
with global economic agendas, and are crucial to questions related to climate change, mobility
and migration, technological innovation, economic development and infrastructure. At the
same time, global cities dramatically display the challenges posed by social inequalities and
exclusion. What impact do global cities have on these issues, and what impact do these issues
have on them in turn?
“Global cities” are and always have been both, products and producers of globalization. They
play an important role in shaping a global economy, culture and society, but they are also
shaped by it. And they are places where countervailing forces match and local reactions to
globalization become especially visible.
A global city is a city that has the power to effect global issues and change the global
outlook. They can do this through a varied set of systems from politics to military and
economics, controlling and adapting the route the global economy take.

There are seven types of global cities driving the world economy:
The first three are the world’s leading economic power centers.
1. Global Giants: These are the world’s leading economic and financial centers, its foremost
global cities. They include New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Tokyo, and Osaka-Kobe.
2. Knowledge Capitals: These are world’s leading knowledge and tech hubs. They include 19
cities centers such as San Jose (the Silicon Valley), Boston, Seattle, San Diego, Washington, D.C.,
Chicago, Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, Portland, and Denver in the U.S. and Amsterdam, Stockholm,
and Zurich in Europe.
3. Asian Anchors: These are Asia’s five established and rising economic power centers: Hong
Kong, Singapore, Seoul-Incheon, Shanghai, Beijing—and Moscow. Their ability to attract foreign
direct investment makes them serious global power players despite having lower levels of
economic output than the Global Giants.
In addition to the global economic powerhouses, the report identifies four other types of
global cities in the U.S. and around the world which occupy the middle ranks of the world
economy. Some are growing in sync with globalization; others are more challenged by it.
4. American Middleweights: These are 16 mid-sized U.S. metro areas, including places that are
growing via connections to the global economy, including Miami and Rustbelt metros like
Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh, which have up until now, have seen their major industries
challenged by global competition.
5. International Middleweights: This group includes 26 mid-sized metros outside the U.S.,
including Toronto and Vancouver in Canada; Brussels, Rome, Milan, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, and
Barcelona in Europe; Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth in Australia; and Tel Aviv in the Middle
East. Many of these cities are aspiring tech and knowledge hubs and serve as centers for talent,
as well.
6. Factory China: This set includes 22 second- and third-tier Chinese cities that are
manufacturing powerhouses. Even though these metros have experienced rapid growth based
on export-intensive manufacturing, they remain relatively poor.
7. Emerging Gateways: These are 28 large global business and transportation gateways for
major national and regional markets, including Mexico City, Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul,
Mumbai, and Johannesburg.

CITIES IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD

Although globalization certainly affects rural and peril urban areas, global forces are
centered in cities. It is in cities that global operations are centralized and where we can see
most clearly the phenomena associated with their activities, whether it is changes in the
structure of employment, the formation of powerful partnerships, the development of
monumental real estate, the emergence of new forms of local governance, the effects of
organized crime, the expansion of corruption, the fragmentation of informal networks or the
spatial isolation and social exclusion of certain population groups.
The characteristics of cities and their surrounding regions, in turn, help shape globalization,
for example by providing a suitable labor force, making available the required physical and
technological infrastructure, creating a stable and accommodating regulatory environment,
offering the bundle of necessary support services, contributing financial incentives and
possessing the institutional capacity without which globalization cannot occur. Thus, cities
mediate the reciprocal relationships between economic globalization on the one hand and
human development on the other. They form an important link in processes of globalization
and their implications for human development.

Criticisms of Global Cities:

Despite playing significant roles in the global economy, global city thesis has been known for
being a threat to state-centric perspectives. These cities have been accused of focusing their
reach to other global cities and neglecting cities within the national outreach. These cities are
more connected to the outside world than to their domestic economy. Although they are
interconnected and interdependent, global cities are always in a competitive state. The cities of
New York and London have been trying to outwit each other as the global financial centers.
Local governments have been keen to promote the global cities within their territories as either
economic or cultural centers, or sites of innovation.

Other downsides:
High costs, alienation, impersonality, social isolation
Discrimination against migrants of certain kinds
A global city is a significant production point of specialized financial and producer services
that make the globalized economy run. Sassen covered specifically New York, London, and
Tokyo in her book, but there are many more global cities than this. The question then becomes
how to identify these cities, and perhaps to determine to what extent they function as global
cities specifically, beyond all of the other things that they do simply as cities.

Main Reference: Colic-Peisker (2014)

Aaron M. Renn 12/07/2012
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-a-global-city.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJekil09KA8