Global City

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Cities have undergone changes in economic base, spatial organization, and social structure in order to become more "global." Saskia Sassen (1994, p. 43) says "we are seeing the emergence of a new type of urban system at the global and transnational regional levels: these are systems wherein cities are crucial nodes for international co-ordination and servicing of economies that are increasingly international." This emergence has influenced cities in gaining status as global or world cities and has changed the ways in which they function in the global economy.

Cities have a long history as centers for international trade and banking but in light of globalization, these cities now function in four new ways: first, as highly concentrated command points in the organization of the world economy. ; second, as key locations for finance and for specialized service firms, which have replaced manufacturing as the leading economic sectors; third, as sites of production, including the production of innovations, in these leading industries; and fourth, as markets for the products and innovations produced. Cities concentrate control over vast resources, while finance and specialized service industries have restructured the urban social and economic order (Sassen, 1991, p. 3-4).

However, only a limited number of these cities emerge as transnational locations for investment, for firms, for the production of services and financial instruments, and for various international markets (Sassen, 1994, p. 51).

As highly concentrated command centers in the organization of the world economy, global cities are noted for their range and extent of economic power. They become the locations for the key individuals, institutions, and organizations that manage, manipulate, dictate and determine the formation and reproduction of capitalism across the world (Clark, p.157).

Global cities are sites of production and sites for the accumulation and concentration of capital where distribution and circulation are organized and managed. Global cities are particular sites of production. They are sites for 1. the production of specialized services needed by complex organizations for running a spatially dispersed network of factories, offices, and service outlets; and 2. the production of financial innovations and the making of markets, both central to the internationalization and expansion of the financial industry (Sassen, p. 5). They are favored locations for the institutions of international production and consumption and the individuals and agencies that support and facilitate these activities. The function rather than size is critical (Clark, p.157).

Global cities perform a dual role at the intersection of the global economy and the nation-state. What contributes to growth in the network of global cities may well not contribute to growth in the nations. The presence of global functions and institutions means that global cities have more in common with each other than they have with urban centers in their own countries and with places of similar size elsewhere (Clark, p. 157).

Another role global cities perform is social polarization in occupational and income structure, which is paralleled by high levels of spatial and ethnic segregation as a result of the economic restructuring (Sachs-Jeantet, UNESCO website). Manuel Castells would refer to these global cities of social polarization as 'dual cities' (1989). Those who work in the organizations and institutions that sustain global city status constitute a well-educated, socially mobile, and earn high incomes.

They are cosmopolitan in origin and global in outlook and their corporate, diplomatic and professional skills are well developed, highly prized and generously rewarded. The presence of this group of international service sector workers stretches the social profile more than that in other cities, and creates a wide gap with those at the opposite end of the spectrum. A low-skilled and low-paid working class that services the international service sector exists alongside, but is well separated from the community of global professionals . . . World cities is places of exceptional wealth and affluence, but they are also places of severe disadvantage and deprivation (Clark, p. 157-159).

Because global cities are the command centers for the world economy, cities that used to be manufacturing centers suffer. Workers who have received higher education continue to climb the financial ladder while those workers with low or medium skills continue to move down and the inequalities increase (Sassen, p.209).

References

Castells, M. (1989). The Informational City. Information, Technology, Economic Restructuring and the Urban-Regional Process. London : Basil Blackwell.

Clark, D. (2003). Urban World/Global City . New York: Routledge.

Sassen, S. (1991). Global Cities: New York , London , Tokyo . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Sassen, S. (1994). "The urban complex in a world economy." International Social Science Journal, n° 139, pp. 43-62.

Sachs-Jeantet, C. "Managing Social Transformations in Cities" http://www.unesco.org/most/sachsen.htm#GlobalCity

 

Contributed by Kay Fujiyoshi