THE GLOBAL CITY

• Global city


  An urban city that enjoys significant competitive advantages and that serves as a hub within a globalized economic system
• Global city


  • Linkages binding a city have a direct and tangible effect on global affairs through more than just socio-economic means, with influence in terms of culture, or politics
• Global city is the main physical and geographic playground of the globalizing forces
• Cosmopolitanism


  A phenomenon most readily associated with the global city: large and diverse cities attract people, material and cultural products from all over the world
• Cosmopolitanism often focuses on consumption in global cities, where everyday life is significantly shaped by commercial culture, retail and shopping
• The 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
• 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
• Through global cities the nation-states project their significance onto the global stage
• Major Characteristics of a Global City

  • International, first name familiarity
  • Active influence and participation in international events and world affairs
  • A fairly large population
  • A major international airport
  • An advanced transportation system that includes several freeways and/or a large mass transit network offering multiple modes of transportation
  • In the West, several international cultures and communities (such as a Chinatown), in other parts of the world, cities which attract large foreign businesses and related expatriate communities
  • International financial institutions, law firms, corporate headquarters (especially conglomerates), and stock exchanges that have influence over the world economy
  • An advanced communications infrastructure on which modern trans-national corporations rely
  • World-renowned cultural institutions, such as museums and universities
  • A lively cultural scene, including film festivals, premieres, a thriving music or theatre scene, an orchestra, an opera company, art galleries, and street performers
  • Several powerful and influential media outlets with an international reach
  • A strong sporting community, including major sports facilities, home teams in major league sports, and the ability and historical experience to host international sporting events such as the Olympic Games, Football World Cup, or Grand Slam tennis events
• Global cities that attract large population intakes have high real-estate prices and as a consequence of population growth suffer falling housing affordability
• Income polarization is mostly present in large gateway cities, where large immigration intakes tend to depress wages at the bottom of the labor market
• In Singapore and Shanghai the processes of globalization are far less laissez-faire than in the "Western" cities and are in fact tightly managed by the state
• According to Japanese Mori Foundation's Global Power City Index, the global power of cities is measured by a combination of six criteria: economy, research and development, cultural interaction, livability, environment, and accessibility
• The top five cities according to these criteria are New York, London, Paris, Tokyo and Singapore
• The most important 21st century cities are those which represent "brain hubs", that is, concentrations of innovative people and firms
• Baum, 1999: 'In Singapore and Shanghai for example, the processes of globalization are far less laissez-faire than in the "Western" cities and are in fact fightly managed by the state'
• Singapore's dual industrial strategy


  Up-market manufacturing is kept alongside burgeoning professional services, lessened the workforce polarization effect
• In the twenty-first century, the list of global cities expanded to encompass cities across Asia, and few cities in other parts of the world
• Global power of cities


  Measured by a combination of six criteria: economy, research and development, cultural interaction, livability, environment, and accessibility
• Top five cities according to these criteria

  • New York
  • London
  • Paris
  • Tokyo
  • Singapore
• Cities deserve their global status through their "magnetism"


  A comprehensive power to attract creative people and excellent companies from around the world amidst accelerated inter-urban competition
• The most important 21st century cities

  Those which represent "brain hubs", that is, concentrations of innovative people and firms, and are also good "human ecosystems" for cutting-edge businesses, providing all the support functions or "secondary services for the innovators
• The continuation of the success of Western economies nowadays hinges on the "knowledge economy": the creation of new ideas, technologies and products
• The "knowledge economy" has an inherent tendency towards geographical agglomeration, going against the widely accepted view that Internet communication makes the place of work irrelevant
• Larger "brain concentrations" have


  A "thicker labor market, a high supply of professionals and a high demand for them, with a possibility to fast recruit, which is critical in the "time- driven and horizontal knowledge economy, and a more specialized supply of business services, as well as more opportunities for "knowledge spillovers"
• Creative people thrive in the company of other creative people and tend to stagnate in isolation, even if Internet-connected
• The role of cities as critical concentrations of people and hubs of exchange of products and ideas is not new: they have been the engine of civilization since the beginning of history
• Major Challenges of Global Cities

  • Have more interconnectedness with other cities and across a transnational field of action than with the national economy
  • Many of the same characteristics because of their connectedness and shared experiences of globalization. They all exhibit clear signs of deindustrialization
  • They possess the concentration of financial and service industries within their spatial boundaries, as well as the concentration of large pools of labor
  • Many also share experiences of class and ethnic conflict
  • They often have segmented labor markets in which employees of key industries enjoy well-paid and consumerist lifestyles while a lower stratum of workers or staffs are less well-paid, more precarious, and less attractive positions within the urban economy
  • Promotion of global cities runs the risk of economically marginalizing non-urban populations within the national economy
  • They caused numerous congestions in transports and life in metropolis is, also expensive
  • Pollution of the air, particularly in the center of these cities
• Outside the advertising discourse of tourist brochures and the upbeat rhetoric of local politicians, the super-diverse global cities are places that harbor many contradictions
• While globalization endangers the livelihoods of individuals, groups and even nations, it also offers many opportunities, and these are concentrated in global cities
• The hyper-competitive capitalist globalization inevitably creates winners and losers
• Some people have more agency than others, and more power to withstand structural forces pushing them in a certain direction due to their gender, ethnicity, socio-economic background, education, age group, and other "determinants"
• The winners of capitalist globalization are those individuals, communities, cities and nations that can cultivate the ultimate virtue of flexibility in the era of "liquid modernity"
• Those armed with globally recognized professional credentials, entrepreneurial spirit and cross-cultural competence are the ultimately desirable "human capital" and the paragons of the "liquid life": the model residents of global cities
• Those who are not thus endowed, and perhaps coming from distant hinterlands without educational and urban skills, may struggle to keep afloat in the liquid modernity of the global city
• The global city, and globalization itself, could not work without those who end up fulfilling the unglamorous but nonetheless indispensable "low skilled services"
• The growth of cities comprises very different pathways: affluent global cities, able to attract financial and human capital, will continue their planned growth to increase their livability and global significance, and the gap between them and the chaotic, slum-ridden megocities of the Third World is likely to become wider as a consequence of capitalist globalization
• Global city


  Central place in understanding contemporary spatial patterns of globalization
• Global city


  • Main physical and geographic playground of the globalizing forces
  • Space of population concentration and mixing
  • Where global flows of people, capital and ideas are woven into the daily lived experiences of its residents
• Cultural diversity in global city

  • Key marker of the global city
  • Consequence of human mobility and migration
  • Detected on the surface as a "cosmopolitan feel"