THE

GLOBAL
CITY
 Introduction

“GLOBAL CITY”
• It has a central place in understanding
contemporary spatial patterns of globalization.
• CULTURAL DIVERSITY- is a marker of global City
and a consequence of human mobility and
migration. This is usually detected on the
surface as a “cosmopolitan feel.”
 Introduction

• Global city represents and in many ways contains the  world in

a bounded space.
• Many global problems, contradictions, hostilities  and
inequalities also find expression.
• Cosmopolitanism is a phenomenon most readily associated
with the global city.
 Discussion

• Capitalist context, such cosmopolitanism often  focuses on

consumption in global cities.
• Cosmopolitan Consumption is characterized by variation.
 Discussion

• The global  city also provides a cosmopolitan variety of

cultural products, in order to attract and satisfy  those with
cross-cultural curiosity.

CO-EXISTENCE
TOLERANCE
Discussion

• Cosmopolitan consumption in all its richness

and variety that a global city has to  offer
requires time and money.
• Local fléneur, devoted to  sophisticated
urban(e) enjoyments, is nowadays a thing of
the past.
• “Electronic fléneur”- Enjoy mobility in the
visual world.
 Discussion
Downsides of a Global City:
• High housing costs, long working hours
• Competitive and precarious labour market
• Long  commuting times
• Urban anonymity and a relative social isolation
• A fear of strangers crime after (or even before) dark
• Residential hyper-mobility
Global city attracts migrants and  visitors but it does not
accept all newcomers with the same welcome.
 Discussion

There aspects hidden from the global city:

Marginal dwellers:
• Sweatshop workers
• Poorly paid labour in the grey economy
• Asylum seekers
• Undocumented immigrants, women trafficked for  sex work
• Drug dealers and addicts
• The homeless
TWO FACED REALITY OF GLOBAL
CITY
Discussion

Mobility, diversity, and community

Saskia Sassen (1991) identified only three global
cities: New York, London and Tokyo.  
Criteria for the status of the global city were,
unsurprisingly,  primarily economic: global cities,
according to Sassen, are the “command centres”
• Main  nodes of triumphant global capitalism.
 Discussion

• Other cities, primarily in up-  and-coming Asia,

started to enjoy the status of global cities where
primarily financial, but also  other “productive
services.”
• Things that are produced in a global city are  not
primarily material.
• Large manufacturing agglomerations are now
invariably placed outside  global cities.
Discussion

• Adidas
Global city is to stop making things and
• Apple Computer switch to  
• Canon Electronics handling and shifting money and ideas.  
• Goodyear Tire
• Gucci
 Discussion

• Global cities are decidedly post-industrial: Shanghai

• Singapore is another recent addition to the global city club,
with its efficient global transportand growing professional
service sector.
 Discussion

• Zukin describes the process of switching to a “service

economy” as a “cultural turn”.
• “Symbolic production” -global cities  are no longer experienced
as “landscapes of production" but as “landscapes of
consumption.”  
• Even if the cities are not Western, the consumer culture
definitely remains an  invention of the affluent West
(Humphery, 2010).  
 Discussion

• Labour demand —key workforce is the  professional class.

According to Sassen (1991: 280), constituted only five percent of
 New York residents at the beginning of the twentieth century but
grew to 30 per cent by the  late 1980s.
• These “knowledge workers”.
• Their burgeoning presence in global cities, alongside withdrawal of
 manufacturing and its working class, lead to gentrification of
previously industrial inner-city neighbourhoods over the past half-
century.
 Discussion

• Gentrification is at the same time a process of  social

class polarization and residential segregation of the
affluent from the poor.
• The lifestyle and needs of the well-off professional
classes bring into  the global city an army of low-paid
workers who deliver personal and labour-intensive
 services.
• Occupational and income  polarization.
Discussion

Polarization
Discussion

• The global cities that attract large

population intakes have high real-estate
prices and as a  consequence of
population growth suffer falling housing
affordability.
Discussion

• This is especially  noticeable

in Australia over the past
decade of very high
immigration intakes (Wood,
2004).  
Discussion

• Casual and insecure jobs- pertains to the large urban labor markets
now comprises the most flexible labor .

• Polarization argument  should be applied with caution

Greater Application of Laissez-faire

SHANGHAI CHINA SINGAPORE

Discussion

• Singapore's dual
 industrial strategy-
manufacturing is kept
alongside burgeoning
 professional services.
 Discussion

Japanese Mori Foundation's Global  Power City Index

• Global power of cities is measured by a combination of six
criteria:  
1.Economy
2.Research and development
3.Cultural interaction
4.Liveability
5.Environment and  
6. Accessibility
 Discussion

• Cities deserve their global status through their

“magnetism": a comprehensive  power to attract creative
people and excellent companies from around the world
amidst  accelerated interurban competition.’
• Enrico Moretti (2012) States that the most important
twenty-first century cities are those which represent “brain
hubs”.
• “Knowledge economy”: the creation of new ideas,
technologies and products ( Moretti, 2012).
 Discussion

Focusing on the United States, Moretti adds a

new dimension to the global cities debate
• Most important American cities not
primarily as financial hubs but rather as
 thriving hubs of digital innovation, and
opposes them to “struggling cities” with low
human  capital base.
• The main brain  hubs with more than half of
their population with college degrees are
Silicon Valley (San  Francisco— San Jose
area) the home ground of the digital era
giants such as Google and  Apple.
 Discussion

• “Great  Divergence” - growing

polarization of the labour market
within large cities not only between
and among cities (Moretti, 2012).
• American cities may be  less racially
segregated that a few decades ago,
BUT they are becoming increasingly
 segregated by education and
earnings.
Discussion
MOBILITY
• Over the past three decades, the globalization of the labour markets
has created a new type  of professional nomadism.
• A high level of economic dynamism,  and accompanying population
mobility, are considered signs of economic health.
• Competitive economy” requires a “flexible workforce".
• Globalization has not only created the global labour market, causing
an increase in  transnational mobility and migration, but has
simultaneously affected local labour markets  Castles and Miller,
2003).
 Discussion

• Employment mobility has been markedly increasing since the early

 1970s.
• Employment mobility or labor mobility- Labor mobility refers to the
ease with which laborers are able to move around within an
economy and between different economies.
• Two primary types of labor mobility: geographic and occupational.
• In the twenty-first century, a loyal “company man” and a “job for
life" are largely  matters of the past.
• The service sector is  inherently more dynamic and flexible than the
manufacturing sector.
 Discussion

• The importance and reputation of global cities is largely

built on their ability to attract the key  professional and
innovative workforce, as well as investors.
• The professional middle  classes, having in general more
control and autonomy in their workplace.
• The lower-skilled service workers often move jobs by
necessity.
 Discussion

• Classical conceptual dichotomy of  “cosmopolitans vs.

locals” as proposed by Merton in the 1950s.
• “Locals” was preoccupied with local problems.
• “cosmopolitans”  more “ecumenical” and sought social
status outside the local community.

COSMOPOLITAN-More Mobile
 Discussion

• International education market, which

nowadays moves considerable middle-
class  populations of young people across
the globe, represents a significant
potential of the  “creative class. ”
• All cities worthy of the “global  city"
title are nowadays also magnets for
international students.
Knowledge
Discussion

DIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY

• As a positive, diversity represents potential for successful merging of
cultures and ideas, what usually comes under the label
"cosmopolitan. “
• Namely, as a negative, diversity can mean a potential for fracturing
social  cohesion.
• “Linguistically and culturally diverse" (CALD) to describe
disadvantaged immigrant minorities: refugees, asylum seekers,
temporary labour migrants and international students hoping to
secure the famous “PR“ (permanent residence).
Discussion

• Global cities are home to a diverse and visible set  of

protagonists of the “urban lifestyle“: artists, bohemians, new
media designers, gay and  youth subcultures, university
students and immigrants.
• According to Zukin (1998: 837), urban cultural diversity is a
“creative mirror" to the paradox of  economic polarization.
Discussion

• Global cities, the modern Babylons, buzz with action, mixing

diversity and excitement, providing freedom and anonymity.
• Different types of marginalities based on gender, ethnicity,
culture and class: single mothers, lesbians, recent immigrant
and refugee groups, backpackers, the homeless, the elderly.
• These cities are home to knowledge workers and research
clusters that make them a  significant driving force of the
knowledge economy.
 Discussion

The Global University City Index ranking uses four main criteria:
1. “Global university  recognition”
2. Amenity- “liveability", connectivity”, “population scale",
“to ensure scale, diversity and vibrancy“
3. “Research  inputs and performance
4.“Education  inputs and performance"
Discussion

• Melbourne also currently holds the honour of winning

the title of the world's “most liveable city" in 2011-
2017
• In 2018- Vienna
Summary

• Negative and Positive side of Global City

• Various standards in classifying global city.