The GLOBAL CITY

Facilitator: Voltaire B. Jacinto

 QUESTIONS????
 What are global cities?
 What are the attributes of a global city?
 Why globalization is a spatial
phenomenon?
 How cities served as engines of
globalization?
KEY TERMS:

 GLOBALITY
 GLOBALISM
 Imperialism and Internationalism
 GLOBALITY is the end-state of
Globalization.
 A hypothetical condition in which the process of
globalization is complete or nearly so, barriers have
fallen, and "a new global reality" is emerging.

 The term was used in 1998 by author and economist Daniel Yergin in a Newsweek
article that described the end-state of the globalization process, and in his book,
Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy.
 William Safire traces the etymology of “globality” in his book No
Uncertain Terms and identifies a range of citations as far back
as 1942, when it was used as a synonym for “global.”

 Current use of “globality” as it applies to business – as a

description of the current competitive state of world commerce
– was not adopted until recently.

 The term has been described by William J. Holstein in the

New York Times as "a new buzzword [that] doesn’t work — it
merely describes trends that have been under way for at
least two decades under a very similar name."
 GLOBALITY vs. GLOBALISM
 GLOBALISM  a national policy of
treating the whole world as a
proper sphere for political influence.

 Compare with: Imperialism and

Internationalism
 What are GLOBAL CITIES?
 Defining the Global City
 New global cities have since arisen not only
as financial centers but also a producers of
services that are global in scope
 Global cities are post-industrial
 Manufacturing has been scattered across
national and global networks
 Turn from “landscapes of production” to
“landscapes of consumption”
 Defining the Global City
 Global cities are “brain hubs” and centers of a
“knowledge economy”
 Economies of scale and concentration are necessary
despite the proliferation of communications
technology
 Network economies and spillover effects include
“thick labor markets” in knowledge workers.
 Polarization extends to differentiation by human
capital (skills and formal education)
 Global City?
 Sociologist Saskia Sassen popularized this
term.
 Her The Global City: New York, London,
Tokyo (1990) has shaped the concepts
and methods used to analyze the role of
cities and their networks in the
contemporary world.
 Sassen’s concept of Global City gives
emphasis on the flow of information and
capital.
 Global Cities are major nodes in the
interconnected systems of information
and money, and the wealth that they
capture is intimately related to the
specialized businesses that facilitate
those flows.

 making sense of urban systems and their

global networks
 In the age of globalization, the
activities of production are
scattered on a global basis.

 These complex, globalized production networks require new forms of

financial and producer services to manage them.
 WHY STUDY GLOBAL CITIES?
 Globalization as Spatial
Phenomenon
 Spatial as it occurs in physical spaces.
- Foreign investments and capital move through a city
- Companies build skyscrapers

 Globalization is spatial because what makes it move is the fact

that it is based in places. In other words, cities act on
globalization and globalization acts on cities:
-Los Angeles, home of Hollywood, is where movies are made for
global consumption
-Tokyo, headquarters of Sony, the company coordinates the sale
of its various electronics goods to branches around the globe
 Attributes of Global City
 SEATS OF ECONOMIC POWER
 New York have the largest stock market in the world
 Tokyo houses the most number of corporate headquarters
 Shanghai plays critical role in the global economic supply
 CENTERS OF AUTHORITY
 Washington DC, not wealthy as New York, but it’s the seat of American
Power
 Canberra is Australia political capital: home to country’s politicians and
bureaucrats
 CENTERS OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE
 Cities that house major International Organizations: UN-New York, EU-
Brussels
 CENTERS OF HIGHER LEARNING AND CULTURE
 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.
 1. AT Kearney’s list, developed in conjunction with the Chicago Council on
Global Affairs. Global Cities Index uses criteria across five dimensions:

 A. Business Activity (headquarters, services

firms, capital markets value, number of
international conferences, value of goods through
ports and airports)
 B. Human Capital (size of foreign born
population, quality of universities, number of
international schools, international student
population, number of residents with college
degrees)
 C. Information Exchange (accessibility of major TV
news channels, Internet presence (basically number
of search hits), number of international news
bureaus, censorship, and broadband subscriber rate)
 D. Cultural Experience (number of sporting event,
museums, performing arts venues, culinary
establishments, international visitors, and sister city
relationships).
 E. Political Engagement (number of embassies and
consulates, think tanks, international organizations,
political conferences)
 2. The Institute for Urban Strategies at The Mori Memorial
Foundation in Tokyo published another study called “The Global
Power City Index 2011.” This report examined cities in terms of
functions demanded by several “actor” types: Manager,
Researcher, Artist, Visitor, and Resident.

The functional areas were:

 A. Economy (Market Attractiveness, Economic Vitality,
Business Environment, Regulations and Risk)
 2. Research and Development (Research Background,
Readiness for Accepting and Supporting Researchers,
Research Achievement)
 3. Cultural Interaction (Trendsetting Potential,
Accommodation Environment, Resources of Attracting
Visitors, Dining and Shopping, Volume of Interaction)
 4. Livability (Working Environment, Cost of Living,
Security and Safety, Life Support Functions)
 5. Environment (Ecology, Pollution, Natural
Environment)
 6. Accessibility (International Transportation
Infrastructure, Inner City Transportation Infrastructure)
Mori Foundation Global City Power Index (2015)
 Global Power City top 10: (2016)
 1. London,
 2. New York City,
 3. Tokyo,
 4. Paris,
 5. Singapore,
 6. Seoul,
 7. Amsterdam,
 8. Berlin,
 9. Hong Kong,
 10. Sydney.
 3. Another popular ranking is the Economist Intelligence
Unit’s Global City Competitiveness Index. They rank cities
on a number of domains:
A. Economic Strength (Nominal GDP, per capita GDP, % of
households with economic consumption > $14,000/yr, real GDP
growth rate, regional market integration)
B. Human Capital (population growth, working age
population, entrepreneurship and risk taking mindset, quality of
education, quality of healthcare, hiring of foreign nationals)
C. Institutional Effectiveness (electoral process and
pluralism, local government fiscal autonomy, taxation, rule of
law, government effectiveness)
 D. Financial Maturity (breadth and depth of financial cluster)
 E. Global Appeal (Fortune 500 companies, frequency of
international flights, international conferences and conventions,
leadership in higher education, renowned think tanks)
 F. Physical Capital (physical infrastructure quality, public
transport quality, telecom quality)
 G. Environment and Natural Hazards (risk of natural disaster,
environmental governance)
 H. Social and Cultural Character (freedom of expression and
human rights, openness and diversity, crime, cultural vibrancy)
4. Jon Beaverstock, Richard G. Smith and Peter J. Taylor
established the Globalization and World Cities Research
Network (GaWC). A roster of world cities in the GaWC
Research Bulletin 5 is ranked by their connectivity through four
"advanced producer services": accountancy, advertising,
banking/finance, and law
 Alpha world cities (with four sub-categories),
 Alpha ++, alpha +, alpha, alpha-
 Beta world cities (three sub-categories),
 Beta +, Beta, Beta-
 Gamma world cities (three sub-categories) and
additional cities with High sufficiency or Sufficiency
presence.
 Gamma+, Gamma, Gamma-
 CHALLENGES OF GLOBAL CITY
 GLOBAL CITIES CAN BE SITES OF GREAT INEQUALITY AND
POVERTY
 New York and Tokyo can be sustainable because of their density: denser
settlements yield energy savings; extensive public transportation systems
enable people to drive less cutting carbon emission
 Los Angeles meanwhile are urban sprawls, with massive freeways that force
residents to spend money on cars and gas
 Manila, Bangkok, and Mumbai are dense, their lack of public transportation and
the government’s inability to regulate car Industries have made them
extremely polluted
 TREMENDOUS VIOLENCE CAUSE BY TERROR
ATTACKS
 9/11 attack in New York in 2001
 Attacks by Zealots of the Islamic State of Iraq and
Levant in Paris
 THE GLOBAL CITY AND THE POOR
 MASSIVE INEQUALITY SITED IN SOME MAJOR
CITIES
 Cities like Mumbai, Manila and Jakarta have gleaming building
alongside massive shanty towns
 GENTRIFICATION is a phenomenon of driving out the
poor in favor of newer, wealthier residents
 African-Americans and Immigrants in New York and San
Francisco are being forced to move farther away from the
economic centers of their cities
 BANLIEUE
 A cluster of ethnic enclaves which includes poor Muslim
 CONCLUSION
 Global Cities are material representation of Globalization
 They are places that create the exciting fusion of culture
and ideas which also generate tremendous wealth
 Yet, 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 VERY MUCH.