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Global Population & Mobility: The Global City
A global city is also known as a world city, alpha city, or world center. In geography and global studies, globalization refers to the largely created, facilitated, and enacted strategic geographic areas based on the significance of the global system of finance and trade. The existence of a global city has a direct and tangible effect on international affairs through socioeconomic measures. Originally the term was megacity, which was later changed to a global city by the noted sociologist Saskia Sassen in her 1991 work entitled-The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Patrick Geddes was the one who coined the term world city in 1915. Subsequently, the term has meant the city's influence and financial capital with the other factors considered less significant.
The Global city is the center of the different globalizing forces where there exist population concentration and mixing. The intertwine flows of people, capital, and ideas are lived and experienced by the people in a global city. The consequence of this mobility is cultural diversity, which is considered as a “cosmopolitan feel". Consequently, there is a cosmopolitan consumption, cosmopolitan work culture, global networking, and global transnational community relations. The Global city accommodates the world in a bounded space. Inevitably, there are global problems, hostilities, and injustices that transpire out of the global city.
Cosmopolitanism is best described as larger diverse cities that attract people, material. and cultural products worldwide. Zuikin (1998) discussed that cosmopolitanism is concomitant with the capitalist context, which focuses mainly on consumption and is highly influenced by commercial culture, retail, and shopping. These are also shaped by a cross-cultural variety of food, fashion, entertainment, and other artifacts.
An important characteristic of a global city is the presence of a cosmopolitan variety of cultural products, which satisfy the cross-cultural curiosity of people. The cosmopolitan consumption in all its richness and variety that a global city can offer requires time and money. The foreigners in a global city are constant people therein fully devoted to its cosmopolitan consumption. This hyper-mobile unreality is called an overseas holiday (Peatherstone, 1998).
The Global city is both a dream and a nightmare. Indeed, it is a huge source of attraction to the migrants and tourists and yet this can also be a source of inequalities and inequities in society. There are high-living professionals with greener pastures yet undeniably, which may not be visible to sight are the marginal dwellers, sweat-shop workers, poorly paid labor in the grey areas, asylum seekers, undocumented immigrants, drug dealers, sex workers, and the homeless. These global cities are hubs of innovation, creativity, and productivity and the creators of new trends and fashions, but unfortunately, these are also the niches of demi-monde and social ills of all kinds (Adaptation from the book: The Contemporary World. 2nd Edition. Fernandez, G et.al., 2019). There are two sides to a coin. This urban life in the global city is considered a pinnacle of civilization but at the same time these can also be dehumanizing and alienating people from the natural milieu (Tonnies, 1889/195; Simmel, 1903/1971)
The concept of a global city is a phenomenon that was preceded by the idea of the world city and is originated as early as 1927 by Roderick McKenzie, a Chicago academician. These are considered as the centers of imperial power or free cities the crossroads of international merchant routes which prevailed since ancient times.
The globalization paradigm evolved since the 1980s and it has developed conceptual and ideological disputes. The importance of nation-states can be discounted, however, the impact of the global macro-processes in the everyday lives of the people is also increasing. These are ignited by the global forces, from the economic, geopolitical, cultural, and environmental aspects. Every global city is also a national city, which oftentimes goes beyond the host nation.
Saskia Sassen (1991) identified only three global cities namely New York, London, and Tokyo. The choice was mainly based on economic standards. According to Sassen, global cities are the command centers; the main nodes of triumphant global capitalism. He contended that the more globalized the economy becomes, the higher the agglomeration of central functions in relatively few sites. Moreover, Sharon Zukin (1998:826) considered the cultural perspective of globalization and put New York, London, and Paris at the top of the “urban cultural hierarchy” in terms of cultural innovations.
New York
London
Tokyo
Wu 2000 discussed that the focus of production in a global city is no longer primarily material. It seems that one of the conditions of the status of global city is to stop making things and switch to handling and shifting money and ideas. These global cities are undeniably postindustrial. For instance, Shanghai was previously state- controlled socialist industrial powerhouse, which claimed its global city status when the chimneys started to be replaced by steel-and glass skyscrapers. The same is true with Singapore through its efficient global transport infrastructure and growing Professional service sector (Baum,1999, p.1097)
Consequently, global cities are no longer tagged as landscapes of production but rather as landscapes of consumption (Zukin, 1998, p825). Abstract products like financial instruments, information, and culture have been growing in importance. This is best described as a symbolic or service economy with a cultural turn in the society.
Only five percent of the New York residents composed the global cities at the start of the twentieth century, which later grew to 30 percent by the late 1980s. Colic-Peisker (2010) elaborated that these knowledge workers are not necessarily part of the core wealth and power elite of global capitalism, but these are a globally mobile, career-minded middle class. Their growing presence in global Cities, concomitant with the withdrawal of manufacturing and its working class, results in the gentrification of previously industrial inner-city neighborhoods in the past centuries. Gentrification is referred to as the process of social class polarization and residential- segregation of the affluent from the poor. Zukin (1998:835) highlighted this situation as a “wedge between urban social classes.”
Sassen (1991) stressed that these global cities are inevitably resulting in occupational and income polarization, with the highly paid professional class on the one end and the providers of low-paid services on the other. Autor et.al. (2006) mentioned that the labor market of global cities is increasingly hourglass-shaped with a hollow middle as depicted in the polarization of housing markets. Global cities attract large population intakes, which also increases real-estate prices, like the case of Australia in the past decade (Wood, 2004). Zhong, Clark, and Sassen (2007) utilized the census data to support their contentions that the income polarization is generally present in large gateway cities, unfortunately, depress the wages at the bottom of the labor market.
CHARACTERISTICS OF A GLOBAL CITY
It involves cultural diversity, cosmopolitanism, movement of people, capital, ideas, and creativity, imagination and urban consciousness, and symbolic productivity.
There is creativity, fluidity, and productivity.
It is opposed to methodological nationalism where the nation-states serve as a container, which is too static and bounded.
It is primarily economic-financial versus geopolitical-cultural and environmental experiences.
GLOBAL CITY: HYPERMOBILITY, HOMOGENIZATION, AND DIFFERENTIATION
The differentiated insertion and engagements with the global city involve the high-rolling capitalists and high-end professionals vis-a-vis the marginalized grants, sweatshops, and grey economy. This impacts the flow of finance, goods, people, ideas, models, etc. What is apparent in a global city is the knowledge economy. There is the high-end real estate exclusive development and gentrification. The polarization of the socio-economic cultural aspects among the markets, finance, and labor markets becomes evident.
In a global city, the "intra," and "inter"regional trade flows occur. The flow of goods, services, finance, people, data, and communication is inevitable. This further requires a new kind of citizenship.
SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF A GLOBAL CITY
(cf. Sassen, Friedmann, Val Colic Peisker)
Geographic dispersal of economic activities, simultaneous integration that feeds the growth and importance of central corporate functions;
Central functions increasingly complex, headquarters of large global firms outsource them from highly specialized service firms
Specialized service firms engaged in highly complex and globalized markets subject to agglomeration economies;
Headquarters outsource their most complex, unstandardized functions, esp. those subject to uncertain/changing markets, thus, can opt for any location;
Specialized service firms need to provide a global service, which has meant a global network of affiliates, strengthening of cross border city-to city transactions and networks;
Economic fortune of these cities become increasingly disconnected from their broader hinterlands or even their national economies; and
Growing informalization of economic activities which find their effective demand in these cities, yet have profit rates that do not allow them to compete for various resources with the high-profit making firms at the top of the system.
References:
Chapter 26 of textbook: “Mobility, Diversity and Community in the Global City” by Val Colic-Peisker
Sassen, Saskia. 2005. “The Global City: Introducing a Concept.” Brown Journal of World Affairs XI(2): 27-43.
Claudio, Lisandro E., and Abinales, Patricio N.eds. 2018. The Contemporary World. C and E Publishing, Inc.
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