C W O R L D 0 1 :0 0 - 2 :0 0

GLOBAL CITY
 THE MAIN PHYSICAL AND
GEOGRAPHIC PLAYGROUND OF
THE GLOBALIZING FORCES: IN
THIS SPACE OF POPULATION
CONCENTRATION AND MIXING, GLOBAL CITY
THE GLOBAL FLOWS OF
PEOPLE, CAPITAL AND IDEAS
ARE WOVEN INTO THE DAILY
LIVED EXPERIENCES OF ITS
RESIDENTS.
 •a key marker of the global
city and a consequence of
human mobility and
CULTURAL migration,
DIVERSITY
•is usually detected on the
surface as a “cosmopolitan feel":
the global city's “ natives “
encountering and engaging
daily with a variety of immigrants
and visitors.
COSMOPOLITANISM
•global city also provides a
cosmopolitan variety of cultural
products, in order to attract and
satisfy those with cross-cultural
curiosity keen to engage with
"otherness", as well as immigrants
who fight their feeling of
displacement by engaging with
their “original cultures" through
movies, music and other events, in
the company of their compatriots.
 devoted to sophisticated
urban(e) enjoyments, is
Fléneur
nowadays a thing of the past,
if it ever was more than a
Western middle-class
reverie (Featherstone, 1998).
In the age of the Internet,
Featherstone ( 1998: 9 2 1 )
suggests, that Fleneur can
be be replaced b y an
“ electronic f l é n e u r ” w h o no
d o u b t enjoys m u c h greater
m o b i l i t y in the be replaced
b y an “ electronic
f l é n e u r ” w h o no d o u b t
enjoys m u c h greater
m o b i l i t y in the
 •an infinitely
“ rec on st ru c t ab le
“ DATA CITY "
city of bits
E V E R Y D A Y L I F E I N A G L O B A L C I T Y IS L I K E L Y
TO INCLUDE AT LEAST SOME DOWNSIDES:
HIGH HOUSING COSTS, L O N G W O R K I N G
HOURS, COMPETITIVE A N D PRECARIOUS
LABOUR MARKET, LONG COMMUTING
TIMES, URBAN A N O N Y M I T Y A N D A RELATIVE
SOCIAL ISOLATION, A FEAR OF STRANGERS
A N D CRIME AFTER (OR E V E N BEFORE)
DARK, RESIDENTIAL HYPER-MOBILITY AND,
AS THE FLIPSIDE OF A N ON Y M IT Y , THE
CHALLENGES OF PRACTICING
NEIGHBOURLINESS AND
MULTICULTURALISM IN CLOSE
PROPINQUITY TO “DIVERSE” NEIGHBOURS
 considers the intercultural
contact and demographic
variety as prominent
features of the “ g l o b a l
DIVERSITY city “ , connecting t h e m
w i t h the issues of m o b i l i t y
and c o m m u n i t y central to
this chapter ' s analysis.
In order to be able to imagine,
observe and define global city,
one first needs to be able
to imagine the world, the globe,
as one entity.
 While the nation-state no
doubt remains a
powerful institution shaping not
only global macro-processes but
also everyday lives of its citizens,
its power is increasingly relative
and steered by global forces,
primarily economic in nature,
but also geo-political, cultural
and environmental
The global city also
escapes the full control of
the nation state —
although each global city
is also a national city, its
significance as a trans-
national and
“cosmopolitan” hub goes
beyond its “host nation".
Saskia NEW YORK
Sassen
(1991)
identified only LONDON

three global
cities
TOKYO
 According to Sassen,
are the “command centres”,
the main nodes of triumphant
global capitalism (even more
triumphant and global after
the fall of its only real-life
competitor — communism —
at that time
the “things” that are produced in a global city
are not primarily material: large
manufacturing agglomerations are now
invariably placed outside global cities,
normally in the slum-ridden “megacities” of
the “Third World”
GLOBAL
CITIES ARE
DECIDEDLY
POST-
INDUSTRIAL
 The most famous, and of late
also notorious, symbolic products
created in the command posts of
global capitalism are “financial
products", the inflation and then
implosion of which triggered the
“global financial crisis" in 2008
global cities are also concentrations
of geopolitical power, and cultural
and trendsetting powerhouses,
higher education hubs and
playgrounds of creative industries,
such as arts, fashion and design
 is at the same time a process of
social class polarization and
residential segregation of the affluent
from the poor.

GENTRIFICATION

gentrification and
consumption of the gentrifiers
drives a “wedge between urban
social classes".
The polarization of
the service-
dominated post-
industrial
labour market is
reflected in the
polarization of
housing markets
 The global
Economy, research and power of
cities is
development, cultural measured
by a
interaction, liveability, combination
environment of six
criteria:
and accessibility (Mori
Memorial Foundation,
2011: 1
The top five cities New York
according to these
criteria are:
London

Paris

Tokyo

Singapore
 a comprehensive power to
attract creative people and
excellent companies from
MAGNETISM around the world
amidst accelerated interurban
competition’ (2011: 1)
 the creation of
new ideas,
KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY
technologies and
products (2012: 5,
40-1)
Globalization has not As a negative, diversity
Diversity is a rather can mean a potential for
only created the global vague and ambiguous, fracturing social
labour market, causing context-dependent cohesion and social
an increase in concept, at the same capital, as well as a
transnational mobility time carrying positive synonym for
and migration, but has and negative disadvantage of those
simultaneously affected connotation
local labour markets seen as "diverse"
or “Others”.
 Nurturing communities requires
considerable and sustained effort, as well as
stability, while mobility is
seen as imperative in global capitalism
which relies on competitive individualism to
provide its impetus and motivation
 The world “centre“
and “periphery” is
determined more on the
basis of economic
and political power than
geographical location
 “Global university recognition" (meaning
there should be at least two high profile
universities in the city, with at least five per
“Global University cent of international students in the city's
student population and an ability to attract
City Index" created offshore research investment at the level of
by RMIT University at least five per cent)

Amenity” (including “liveability", that is,

being ranked in the top 100 liveable cities;
Four main criteria “connectivity”, that is, the prevalence of
Internet use; and “population scale", that is,
in order to qualify a city must be larger than
two million people “to ensure scale, diversity
and vibrancy"
 .“Research inputs and performance”
(consisting of “expenditure on research and
development" as percentage of GDP
“Global University
expenditure; patent grants and applications
City Index" created per million residents;
and commercialization of research in the
by RMIT University form of royalties and licence fees)

“Education inputs and performance"

Four main criteria
(measured by GDP expenditure on higher
education, student numbers and
graduations).
Outside the advertising
discourse of tourist
brochures and the upbeat
rhetoric of local
politicians, the super-
diverse global cities are
places that harbour many
contradictions
The face that the global city
first shows to visitors and
settlers is usually the dazzling
face of affluence, historic
glory and “culture”, but some
of them will
inevitably experience the
dark side of the global city.
The city lights have always attracted and
will continue to attract the young, the
hopeful and the entrepreneurial, and the
cities will always be the history-making
places. In the early twenty-first century,
one half of humankind lives in urban
areas and this proportion is bound to
increase
.