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 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, 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.
LONDON, United Kingdom
NEW YORK, USA
TOKYO, Japan
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
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.
There are seven types of global cities driving the world economy:
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.
 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.