The Contemporary World: Global City

1. Global Cities
● The world’s most important and influential cities that cover the dimension
of globalization.
● Places that became the main source of economic growth.
● The products and producers of globalization.
● Places that have common characteristics of competitive advancements that
served as a hub within a globalized economic system.
2. Why study Global Cities?
● Learning what Global Cities are, is crucial, because they play an important
role in shaping the global economy, culture and society, and are also
shaped by it.
● Idea that emphasizes a Global City:
○ Globalization is spatial, because:
■ It occurs in physical spaces.
● Foreign investments in the city and business structures
are being built within the city.
● People who are working in these businesses are able to
purchase /rent high-rise condominium units/ better homes.
● More poor people are driven out of cities to make way for
the new developments.
■ It moves based on places.
● Los Angeles - home of Hollywood where movies are made
for global consumption.
● Tokyo - main headquarters of Sony Companies, where the
sales of electronics all around the world coordinates from
various branches.

NOTE: The impact of global cities on every individual: In the 1950's, only 30% of the
world lived in urban areas. By 2014, the number increased to 54%. By 2050, it is
expected to reach 66%.

3. Defining “Global City”:

● Sociologist Saskia Sassen (1990s)

○ Coined the term “Global City” (1991).
○ Criteria that define a Global City:
■ Primarily economic: a network of trade and finance chains.

● General meaning (after the book of Sassen, 2000s to the present): A global
city is a city of demographic and economic change.
○ Examples:
■ Los Angeles - movie making mecca
 ■ San Francisco - home of the most powerful internet
companies: Facebook, Twitter and Google.
■ Sydney and Melbourne - competes in the “most livable city”
— a place with good public transportation, thriving cultural
scene, and easy pace of life.
4. Indicators for Globality

● What is Globality?
○ A concept that symbolizes the unity of the world, as to determine the end-
state of globalization.
● Therefore, indicators of Globality mean factors that will help us attain complete
globalization, perhaps Globality.

● How do Global City indicate Globality?

○ Attributes/Characteristics of a Global City:
■ Economic Power (Sassen)
● Stock market (New York, Tokyo and Shanghai)
■ Economic Opportunity
● IT programmers and Engineers from Asia have moved to the San
Francisco Bay Area to become some of the key figures in Silicon
Valley’s technology boom.
● Filipinos with nursing degrees prefers to work at London.
■ Economic Competitiveness (EIU or the Economic Intelligence Unit)
● Economic Opportunity
○ IT programmers and Engineers from Asia have moved to
the San Francisco Bay Area to become some of the key
figures in Silicon Valley’s technology boom.
○ Filipinos with nursing degrees prefers to work at London.
● Market Size
○ Singapore is considered Asia’s most competitive city
because of its strong market, efficient and incorruptible
government and livability; it also houses the regional
offices of many major global corporations.
● Purchasing Power of Citizens
● Size of the Middle Class
● Growth Potential of Businesses
○ Copenhagen - though a very small city, it is one of the
culinary centers in the world.
○ Singapore - home of top television stations and news
organizations: MTV Southeast Asia and Channel News
Asia.
● Political Influence
○ Singapore is considered Asia’s most competitive city
because of its strong market, efficient and incorruptible
 government and livability; it also houses the regional
offices of many major global corporations.
○ Washington, DC is the seat of American power: White
House, Capitol Building(Congress), Supreme Court,
Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.
○ Canberra is not a good tourist spot but the Australia’s
political capital, it is home to the country’s top politicians,
bureaucrats and policy advisors.
○ Being the house of major organizations:
■ New York - headquarters of United Nations
■ Brussels - European Union
■ Jakarta - headquarters of ASEAN
■ Frankfurt - The European Central Bank
● Center of Higher Learning and Culture
○ New York - The New York Times magazine that is read all
over the world.
○ Boston - Harvard University — the world’s top university.
○ Manchester - home of the post-punk and new wave
bands: Joy Division, the Smiths

5. The Challenges of Global Cities (Chicago Council on Global Affairs)

Of course, every beneficial side has its downsides, like the broader process of
globalization, global cities create winners and losers:
● Great inequality and poverty
● Tremendous violence
● Pathologies of Global City:
○ Cities can be sustainable because of their density. (Richard Florida)
■ Dense cities release only a little amount of CO2, while less dense
cities forces every individual to use cars, that emits a large
amount of Co2.
○ Cities with global influence are obvious targets of terrorism due to
their high populations and their roles as symbols of globalization that
many terrorists despise.

6. The Global City and the Poor

● Economic globalization has paved the way for massive inequality.
○ Mumbai, Jakarta and Manila - gleaming buildings alongside massive
shantytowns.
● Gentrification
○ Driving out the poor in favor of newer and wealthier residents.
○ The poor are forced to move farther away from the economic centers of
their cities to areas with cheaper values. As a city attracts more capital
and richer residents, real estate prices go up, the poor may not be able to
afford.
 ■ Australia - poor Australians living in urban public housing are
forced to move farther away from city centers that offer more jobs,
more government services and better transportation.
■ France - poor muslim immigrants are forced out of Paris and have
clustered around ethnic enclaves known as “banlieue”.
● The Middle Class is subject to be thinning out.
○ Globalization creates high-income jobs that are concentrated in
global cities, these high earners in turn generate demand for an
unskilled labor force that will attend to their increasing needs.
■ In New York, American investors has childrens raised by a Filipina
maid. A Filipina is now working as a maid instead of working that
applies her skill.
■ Manufacturers and Business process outsourcing are moving to
other countries

CONCLUSION:

1. Global Cities are sites and mediums of Globalization.

2. Global Cities are a material representation of what globalization is all about.
3. Global Cities are places that create exciting fusions of culture and ideas.
4. Global Cities are places that generate tremendous wealth.
5. Global Cities will remain as sites of great inequality, where global servants serve global
entrepreneurs.

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