Lesson 8 – The Global City
• In the 1990s, her criteria for what
If you are given a chance to go or stay
permanently to another country, where
would you go?
Why Study Global Cities ?
• Globalization is spatial because it
occurs in global 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.
• More poor people are driven out of
city centers to make new
developments.
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%
Defining global city
Saskia Sassen
• Popularized the term “global city”
constitutes a global city is primarily
economic.
• New York, London, and Tokyo
Recent commentators have expanded the
criteria Sassen used
• Considers 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
• Others consider something “global” >
great living places 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 Power
- Sassen remains correct in saying that
economic power largely determines
which cities are global.
- New York has the largest stock
market. Tokyo houses are more
corporate headquarters

- China as the manufacturing center of
the world
Economic opportunities also makes it
attractive to the talents from across the world.
To measure the economic competitiveness,
the Economic Intelligence Unit has added
other criteria like:
• market size
• purchasing power of the citizens
• size of the middle class
• potential for growth
2. Authority
•Washington D.C. seat of the
American State Power
• Canberra, a sleepy town but
Australia’s political capital
Authority
Cities that house major international
organizations also be considered as centers
of political influence
• United Nations (New York)
• European Union (Brussels)
• ASEAN (Jakarta)
3. Higher Learning and Culture
A city's intellectual influence can be seen
through
the influence of its publishing industries
• New York, London, Paris
• New York Times
• Harvard University in Boston
AUSTRALIA'S THIRD LARGEST
EXPORTS EDUCATION
In 2015, the Australian government reported
that it made as much as 19.2 billion
Australian dollars ( roughly 14 billion US
dollars).
Los Angeles, center of American Film
Industry.
Copenhagen, capital of Denmark, one of the
culinary capitals of the world, birthplace of
New Nordic cuisine.
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 conjured up images of fast-
paced, exciting, cosmopolitan lifestyles
but such descriptions are lacking.
There are also undersides like their place
is a great sites of inequality, poverty and
violence. Like how globalization works,
global cities also have winners and losers.
Pathologies of the global cities based on the
research of Chicago Council on Global
Affairs
Cities can be sustainable because of their massive shantytowns. This duality
density. may even be seen in rich, urban cities.

“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.
• Gentrification - driving out the poor in
favor of the newer, wealthier
residents.
• Banlieue (bänˈlyo͞o)- Poor Muslims
that are forced out of Paris and have
clustered around ethnic enclaves.
• The middle class is also thinning
out.

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.
• Globalization creates high-income
jobs and this creates a demand for
unskilled labor force.
• Middle-income jobs are moving to
other countries.

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 78% of global
energy.
• 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.”

The Global City and the Poor

• Economic globalization > led >

massive inequality - more pronounced
in cities.

• e.g. Manila, it is common to find

gleaming buildings, alongside