The Global City

A L E M , K YA M KO , P U L A , S A L A R D A
 At The End of this lesson,
you should be able to:
oExplain why globalization is a spatial
phenomenon.
oIdentify the attributes of a global city.
oAnalyse how cities serve as engines of
globalization.
Why Study Global Cities
So far, much of the analysis of globalization in the previous
lessons has looked at how ideas of internationalism shaped modern
world politics. What this lesson will emphasize, however, is that
globalization is spatial. This statement means two things.
Why Study Global Cities
First, globalization is spatial because it occurs in physical spaces.
You can see it when foreign investments and capital move through a
city, and when companies build skyscrapers; People who are
working in these businesses-or Filipinos working abroad-start to
purchase or rent high-rise condominium units and better homes. As
all these events happen, more poor people are driven out of city
centers to make way for new developments.
Why Study Global Cities
Second,globalization is spatial because what makes it move is the
fact that it is based in places. Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood, is
where movies are made for global consumption. The main
headquarters of Sony is in Tokyo, and from there, the company
coordinates the sale of its various electronics goods to branches
across the world. In other words, cities act on globalization and
globalization acts on cities. They are the sites as well as the mediums
of globalization. Just as the internet enables and shapes global
forces, so too do cities.
Defining the Global City
“Saskia Sassen”
 Sociologist who popularized the term “global city” in the 1990’s.
Her criteria for what constitutes a global city were primarily economic.
She initially identified three global cities: New York,London and Tokyo, all of which
area hubs of global finance and capitalism.
They are the homes for instance, the world’s top stock exchanges.
•New York: New York Stock Exchange(NYSE)
•London: Financial Times Stock Exchange(FTSE)
•Tokyo:Nikkei
Defining the Global City
The global economy has changed significantly since Sassen wrote her
book, and any amount of the economic power of cities today must take
note of the latest developments. Recent commentators have expanded
the criteria that Sassen used to determine what constitutes a global city.
Others consider some cities “global” simply because they are great
places to live in.
Defining a global city can thus be difficult. One way of solving this
dilemma is to go beyond the simple dichotomy of global and non-global.
Instead of asking whether if not one city is a global city, it is better to ask:
“In what ways are cities global and to what extent are they global?”.
Indicators For Globality
The foremost characteristic of a global city is economic power.
Sassen remains correct in saying that economic power largely determines
which cities are global.
New York may have the largest stock market in the world but Tokyo houses
the most number of corporate headquarters.
Shanghai may have a smaller stock market compared to New York and
Tokyo, but plays a critical role in the global economic supply chain ever since
China has become the manufacturing center of the world.It has the world’s
busiest container port, moving over 33 million container units in 2013.
Indicators For Globality
To measure the economic competitiveness of a city,
the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has added
other criteria like market size, purchasing power of
citizens, size of the middle class and potential for
growth.
Indicators For Globality
Global cities are also centers of authority.
 Washington D.D. may not be as wealthy as New York, but it is the seat of
American state power.
The cities that house major international organizations may also be considered
centers of political influence.
New York: Headquarters of the United Nations
Brussels: Headquarters of the European Union
Jakarta: Main headquarters of ASEAN(Association of Southeast Asian Nations)
Frankfurt: ECB (European Central Bank)
Indicators For Globality
Global cities are centers of higher learning and culture.
A city’s intellectual influence is seen through the influence
of its publishing industry. (I.e. New York, London, Paris)
Today, global cities become culturally diverse. It is the
cultural power of global cities that ties them to the
imagination.
The Challenges of Global
Cities
Global cities conjure up images of fast-paced, exciting
cosmopolitan lifestyles. But such descriptions are lacking.
Global cities also have their undersides. They can be sites
of great inequality and poverty as well as tremendous
violence. Like the broader processes of globalization, global
cities create winners and losers.
The Challenges of Global
Cities
Cities can be sustainable because of their density.
As Richard Florida notes:“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 svaings; apartment
buildings, for example, are more efficient to heat and cool
than detached suburban houses.”
The Challenges of Global
Cities
Moreover, in cities with extensive public transportation systems,
people tend to drive less and thereby cut carbon emissions.
Because of the sheer size of the city populations across the world, it
is not surprising that urban areas consume most of the world’s
energy. Cities only cover 2% of the world’s landmass, but they
consume 78% of global energy. Therefore, if carbon emissions must
be cut to prevent global warming, this massive energy consumption
in cities must be curbed.
The Challenges of Global
Cities
The major terror attacks of recent years have also targeted
cities. Cities, especially those with global influence, are
obvious targets for terrorists due to their high populations
and their role as symbols of globalization that many
terrorists despise. The same attributes that make them
attractive to workers and migrants make them sites of
potential terrorist violence.
The Global City and the Poor
We have consistently noted that economic globalization has paved
the way for massive inequality. This phenomenon is thus very
pronounced in cities. Some large cities, particularly those in
Scandinavia, have found ways to mitigate inequality through state-
led social redistribution programs. Yet many cities, particularly those
in developing countries, are sites of contradiction. In places like
Mumbai, Jakarta, and Manila, it is common to find gleaming
buildings alongside massive shantytowns. This duality may even be
seen in rich, urban cities.
The Global City and the Poor
In the outskirts of New York and San Francisco are poor urban
enclaves occupied by African-Americans and immigrant families who
are often denied opportunities at a better life. Slowly, they are being
forced to move farther away from the economic centers of their
cities. As a city attracts more capital and richer residents, real estate
prices go up and poor residents are forced to relocate to far away
areas but cheaper areas. This phenomenon of driving out the poor in
favour of newer, wealthier residents is called gentrification.
The Global City and the Poor
In Australian cities, poor aboriginal Australians have been most
acutely affected by this process. Once living in public urban housing,
they were forced to move farther away from city centers that offer
more jobs, more government services, and better transportation due
to gentrification.
In France, poor Muslim migrants are forced out of Paris and have
clustered around ethnic enclaves known as banlieue.
The Global City and the Poor
In most of the world’s global cities, the middle class is also
thinning out. Globalization creates high-income jobs that
are concentrated in global cities. Those high earners, in
turn, generate demand for an unskilled labor force (hotel
cleaners,nannies,maids,etc.) that will attend to their
increasing needs.
The Global City and the Poor
Meanwhile, many middle-income jobs in manufacturing and
business process outsourcing (I.e.call centers) are moving to
other countries.
This hollowing out of the middle class in global cities has
heightened the inequality within them. A large global city
may thus be a paradise for some, but a purgatory for others.
Conclusion
Global cities, as noted in this lesson, are sites and mediums of
globalization. They are, therefore material representations of the
phenomenon. Through them, we see the best of globalization; they
are places that create exciting fusions of culture and ideas. They are
also places that generate tremendous wealth. However, they remain
sites of great inequality, where global servants serve global
entrepreneurs. The question of how globalization can be made more
just is partly a question of how people make their cities more just.
Thank you!!