Module 4 1

Global Cities
At the end of the lesson, students are expected to:
a. analyze how cities serve as engines of globalization;
b. use the theories of urbanism to explain the changes in their city;
c. illustrate with examples the costs of cities or global cities; and,
d. reflect on the proposed sustainable urban ecology

Key Concepts to Understand

agrarian cities global cities industrial cities new politics post-familial city

A. Theories of Urbanism (Excerpts from: Giddens, 2009)

1. David Harvey: the restructuring of space. Space is continually restructured and
determined by: (a) where large firms choose to place their factories, research and development
and so forth; (b) the controls which governments operate over both the land and industrial
production; and, (c) the activities of private investors, buying and selling houses and land. This
was illustrated in the documentary film on Global Cities where it was argued that the
financialization of the urban space empowered the owners of finance and capital to reconstruct
the urban space in response to their needs and that the government allowed the construction of
the needed physical infrastructure projects that are crucial to the connectivity and operation of
the cities.

2. Manuel Castells: urbanism and social movements. The nature of the created
environment is not just the result of the activities of wealthy and powerful people but also the
struggles of the underprivileged groups to alter their living conditions. Urban problems stimulate
a range of social movements concerned with improving housing conditions, protesting air
pollution, defending parks and green belts, and combating building development that changes
the nature of an area. It was also argued in the documentary film, Global Cities, that the informal
urban network is becoming the new normal for urban development. The growth of the cities led
to the growth of slum areas which are located in the peripheral areas of the cities if not adjacent
to the areas where tall buildings were constructed signifying the inequalities within the city. This
reality sparked the growth of movements or organizations to call the attention of both the
government and urban developers to work for a more sustainable urban ecology.
B. Mutation of Cities
1. Agrarian Cities. The first cities in Sumeria marked a quantum leap forward in terms of
technological development and innovation - they are commonly associated with the advent of
civilization itself. This is partly due to the development of writing: cuneiform script developed at
this time, allowing the possibility of deriving history from records. The wheel and the plough
were invented. Formal social institutions began to take shape: centralized places of religious
worship, city-based markets, and politically centralized city- states… Private property, military
power and coercion, and patriarchal dominance became features of social life. At the bottom of
the social scale came slavery. At the top of the hierarchy sat the first kings and their priestly
advisors, using a combination of force and the power of religion to cement their authority.

... Expanded by the technologies of agriculture and irrigation, the city unleashed its inhabitants’
creative potential, as they sought to solve the range of problems urban life confronted them
with.
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A burst of inventiveness followed. Technological leaps forward were made in civil engineering,
long-distance transportation, agricultural productivity, and astronomy. As ancient cities
accumulated goods and wealth, writing and mathematics developed to supplant the limitations
of human memory. The city became a communications hub, intensifying the movement over
time and space of messages and materials.

2. Industrial Cities. The Industrial Revolution remade city space, ... Although the first
industries would establish themselves in locations outside cities, near natural energy sources,
rivers, raw materials, and labour pools, they were transplants of techniques and crafts
developed in cities. The new factories were soon brought into the city centre, along with the
mass of wage labour that was required for their operation.

The industrial city reflected the emergence of three new classes of urban population: firstly, of
the proletariat working class, selling their labour as a commodity, and now packed into the
centre of the city in slums and tenement blocks, situated next to the factories and industrial
buildings at which they worked. This area came to be a familiar feature of capitalist cities: the
central business district. Secondly, the industrial bourgeoisie, or middle class, emerged at this
time as owners of the factories, their residential neighbourhoods connected to the city centre by
new technologies of transit. Finally, alongside these two classes came a growing number of
urban poor, a homeless underclass, ...

3. The Post-metropolis. The information age began the third industrial revolution. The
period is often termed as Post-Industrial to signify a change in the technology that was dominant
in two different periods. The industrial period was dependent on machines while the post-
industrial is dependent on information technology. The industrial period was primarily dependent
on manufacturing while the post-industrial is dependent on the networks of capital, production,
and services. The cities that became the landing points of the world’s flow of capital and goods
as well as the locus of corporate headquarters and financial centers are labeled as global cities.
Kotkin (2017) described some features of these global cities.
The preeminence of these “global” cities rests largely on unique assets: the world’s greatest
universities, research labs, hospitals, financial institutions, corporate headquarters, and
trendsetting cultural industries. These cities also disproportionately attract the rich and
serve as centers of luxury shopping, dining, and entertainment – hence Sassen’s term “the
glamour zone.”
These cities are home to people with unique, highly specialized skills – actors, directors,
app writers, oil geologists, specialized financial consultants – who are often sole proprietors
or employed by smaller firms. These workers tend to cluster in areas that specialize in their
fields and provide the best marketplace for their services.
These cities notably tend to have decent infrastructure, a high degree of cleanliness,
and excellent cultural and recreational facilities. They generally lack the extreme
congestion, high crime, and sanitation challenges common to poorer megacities of the
developing world.
In large part, it is these characteristics that attract foreign capital and talent to these
particular cities. Global hubs often are helped by their populace’s facility with English – the
world’s primary language of finance, culture, and most critically, technology.
Physical connectivity. A successful global city needs to maintain the strongest
possible physical connectivity with other cities around the world. The most “connected”
cities – Dubai, London, and Frankfurt – have all developed strong airport systems. Although
being a hub for air travel does not necessarily create a global city, it is critical to many
businesses that function on an international level.
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Human connectivity. In a world of sharp racial and religious prejudice, such cities,
noted Fernand Braudel, offered outsiders a “haven of comparative security.” “The miracle of
toleration was to be found,” he observed, “wherever the community of trade convened.”
Historic roots. Global cities, particularly the leading ones, owe much to their early
origins – and culture, ideas, and infrastructure rooted in their evolution over time. Hong
Kong, for instance, was developed and sustained as an international port by the British
when it managed it for 99 years and retains its status to date. Singapore, another global
city, was used as a trading post by the British during the colonial period. New York and
London, the top two global cities at present, are old trading centers.
China, being the second larges economy in the world, is able to develop its cities -
Shanghai and Beijing as major global hub. Shanghai is becoming an attractive alternative
to Singapore and Hong Kong as a location to establish regional headquarters. In 2010
alone, 24 companies relocated their Asia-Pacific headquarters to Shanghai, including
Disney, Kraft, and Novartis.

Sassen (cited in Giddens, 2009) was credited to be the first to cite the four traits of the global city
and these are:
1. developed into ‘command posts’ – centers of direction and policy-making – for the global
economy;
2. key locations for financial and specialized service firms, which have become more
important in influencing economic development than is manufacturing;
3. sites of production and innovation in these newly expanded industries, and;
4. markets on which the ‘products’ of financial and service industries are bought, sold or
otherwise disposed

As argued in the documentary film, Global Cities, these global cities do not have the same
functions but they play a specific role in specific networks or they perform a differentiated
function within a global network of exchange and that’s making them a strategic location within a
worldwide value claim. The examples given were:
1. Taipei and Shenzen are the major node in the supply network of high tech electronics;
2. Geneva and Nairobi are important node in global civil society network;
3. Dubai and Hong Kong are for air transport network; and,
4. Washington and Brussels are international political networks given that summits and
conferences that led to the formulation and signing of international agreements are done
in these areas.

4. Costs of Global Cities. The rewards of being a truly globalized city can be enormous. It
creates a market for more diverse cultural amenities, better food, and a greater concentration of
luxurious facilities, compared to other cities of similar or even much larger size. Yet, there are
costs to be paid, as shown in the documentary film, Global Cities.
a. financialization of the urban space limited the area for shared living spaces as urban
spaces are becoming private spaces for investments;
b. while urban centers occupy only 3% of global land areas, their demand of resources has
transformed the physical landscape of varied territories resulting to global environmental
degradation. Examples of which are: the landscape in Malaysia re transformed into palm
plantation for biofuels to keep urban transport running; cement and iron are pulled out
from the ground of Russia to lay concrete for the 20 million Chinese moving into the cities
every year;
c. water system in the Himalayas are altered to provide water for the urban centers of India;
and,
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d. rare earth metals are extracted from Africa for millions of smartphones that keep peers
connected.
e. regardless of the classification of cities, these urban areas are energy intensive as
people are dependent on car ownership resulting to air pollution and traffic congestion.
f. urbanization is a force of exclusion as manifested by the increasing number of migrants
who flock to the cities to avail of the opportunities offered by the global networks in the
cities but unfortunately find themselves living in slum areas. In 2017, it was estimated
that there was nearly a billion informal settlers in slum areas in the world, the number of
which will likely double in 2030.

Kotkin (2017) provided the other costs:

a. Housing inflation - increasingly distorts and threatens the local middle class by raising
property prices, undermining the indigenous economy, and compromising the prospects for
upward mobility. It is increasingly the wealthy that shape “the glamour zone” and fuel the
growing gap between the classes. Their inherited wealth is increasingly diffused among multiple
cities as members of the expanding ranks of the ultra-rich purchase apartments in numerous
locations, sometimes in condominiums within hotels.
b. the foreign invasion (migrant workers) of lower-end service jobs in restaurants and
retail, as well as in construction (resulting to) resentment at migrants.
c. Inequality in the glamour zone. The glut of college-graduates – concentrated in urban
areas – will need to compete with an aging workforce for a still-limited number of positions.
Young people – even the educated and well off – are forced to live in smaller spaces and face
prices that make purchasing a residence prohibitive.
d. “Flattening of cultures.” Rather than establishing strong local roots tied to a specific
neighborhood, today’s global city tends increasingly toward homogenization. It is essentially
recreating the same environment everywhere. The form is not, of course, the single-family
houses or garden apartments of the suburbs but the luxury high-rises that attract the young, the
footloose, and the wealthy to the urban core. Huge towers tend to dominate and change the
tenor of neighborhoods, and in some cases, they even block out the light that once brightened
the city streets and cast shadows over local parks, a classic case of how products for the
wealthy impinge on the shared space of a city.
e. Emergence of post-familial city (the term family, traditionally suggests having children; therefore, when
you say post-familial, that refers to the phenomenon where persons or even married couples choose to be childless and more focus
is on the individual). The factors are:
1. Trends toward ever-increasing density. The notion that height is a symbol of
modernity, efficiency, and even aesthetics is common among urbanists. However,
families generally avoid high-density housing. Simply put, modern families in higher-
income countries require space and are thus generally unwilling to live in crowded
conditions… a strong correlation between higher fertility rates (the number of children
borne by women in their lifetime) and less dense suburban locations.
2. Related phenomenon of high costs of housing. The unaffordability of housing and the
unsuitability of house sizes for families are the principal reasons for the exodus of
families. In Japan, sociologist Muriel Jolivet unearthed a trend of growing hostility toward
motherhood – a trend that stemmed in part from male reluctance to take responsibility for
raising children.
3. Weakness of urban education system. Progress is, in part, a culprit: the ubiquity of
mass education and communications has weakened many of the bonds that held families
together … current material culture seems to be perhaps more effectively undermining
interest in family. This can be seen worldwide, increasingly childless Europe may boast
some of the world’s most impressive religious structures, but the moral influence that
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they once symbolized has diminished considerably... Those who believe in some higher
spiritual value are far more likely to have children than those more secularly oriented.
4. Ability of people to perform functions remotely via the Internet. University of
California psychology professor Bella de Paulo asserts that the unattached constitute an
advantaged group in that they are more cyber-connected and “more likely to be linked to
members of their social networks by bonds of affection.” Unlike families, whose
members, after all, are often stuck with each other, singles enjoy “intentional
communities” and are thus more likely “to think about human connectedness in a way
that is far-reaching and less predictable.”
These “singletons,” as one urban scholar notes, enjoy a “rich social life” that is
“anchored by themselves” through friendship networks and social media. “Living alone,”
he asserts, “might be what we need to reconnect.” Reliance on social media tends to
emphasize further the primacy of post-familial relationships.
Other singles simply feel that they can get from friends and roommates what
people used to seek from family members. “We’ve got all the benefits of family,” explains
one New York thirty something who has lived nearly two decades with his roommates,
“with very little of the craziness that normally comes with them.”
The new childless urbanites, …, will identify less with their parents and
grandparents, or even with their traditional cultural traditions, than with those who share
their particular cultural and aesthetic tastes. They will have transcended the barriers of
race and even country, embracing … “a post materialist” perspective that focuses on
more abstract, and often important, issues such as human rights or the environment, as
well as aesthetic concerns. …, the urban singleton could be a harbinger of not only a
“new race” but also of “new politics” – prioritizes cultural pursuits, travel, and almost
defiant individualism. Now in their 30s and 40s, many of these people, indulge
themselves in hobbies, fashion, or restaurants – personal pursuits not readily available to
their homebound mothers or overworked fathers. Mika Toyota observes that “people’s
lifestyles are more important, and their personal networks mean more than family. It’s
now a choice. You can be single, self-satisfied and well.
5. Women in the workforce. Women’s growing involvement in the workforce, notes author
Stephanie Coontz, has been necessary for decades in order for couples to afford
children, but it also makes it more difficult for them to raise them. This reflects what
Harvard’s Robert Putnam defines as the curse of “pervasive busyness” that now affects
society in high-income countries. Although intense work regimes may increase
productivity today, it clearly makes matrimony and child raising more problematic.

f. Biggest Challenge to the Cities: Diminishing birth rates and the ageing
population
The shift to an aging population creates, particularly in Asia where urbanization is most
rapid, the segregation of generations, with the elderly in rural areas and the younger people in
cities. It is not clear how the expanding senior will fare with fewer children to support them and
in the absence of a well-developed welfare state.
The negative impacts of rapid aging and a diminished workforce are already being felt,
even in such prosperous countries as Japan and Germany. By 2030, Germany’s debt per capita
could be twice as high as that of a bankrupt Greece in 2014, and to help address the shortfall,
officials have proposed more taxes. These would be effectively exacted from the working
population, to create what the German officials have labeled a “demographic reserve.” Even in
traditional, thrifty Asian nations such as Japan and Singapore, savings rates have been
dropping, and there is growing concern over whether these countries will be able to support
their soaring numbers of seniors.
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In rapidly urbanizing, relatively poor countries such as Vietnam, the fertility rate is
already below replacement levels, and it is rapidly declining in other poorer countries such as
Myanmar, Indonesia, and even Bangladesh.

By understanding the role of global cities in globalization as well as their costs, everyone can
reflect on what s/he can do to have a healthful and sustainable urban ecology. As the parting
statement in the documentary film, Global Cities, says: “ Urbanization changes us; it creates
new environment, new ways of thinking, new patterns of work, of governance in production and
exchange, of interaction between people of which we come to redefine ourselves and our
relationship to the natural environment.”