CHAPTER 8

Global City

Jerome M. Arcega, MPA

What is a Global City?

• It is also known as “alpha city” or “world

center” which is a city regarded as a
primary node in the global economic
network.
• It pertains to an urban center that
enjoys significant competitive
advantages and that serves as a hub
within a globalized economic system.
What is a Global City ?

• In effect, it serves as an important focal

point for business, global trade, finance,
tourism and globalization to exist.
• Global cities, in some thesis, are
considered as the building blocks of
globalization.
• Global cities are the highly globalized and
competitive metropolitan economies with
the deepest and most settled
concentrations of firms, capital and talent.
Big Six

These are the traditional super cities:

1. London
2. New York
3. Paris
4. Tokyo
5. Hongkong
6. Singapore
Big Six

• It includes the traditional “super cities”

of London, New York, Paris and Tokyo,
but more recently this quartet has been
joined by Hong Kong and Singapore.
• They have competitive advantages, but
nonetheless are vulnerable to other
dynamic gateway cities that are well
positioned to capture spill over demand,
notably Seoul, Toronto, Sydney and,
over the longer term, Shanghai.
The New World Order of Cities
Saskia Sassen
Saskia Sassen

• She is the leading urban theorist of the

global world.
• Her work, The Global City: New York,
London, Tokyo (1991) has shaped the
concepts and methods that other theorists
have used to analyze the role of cities and
their networks in the contemporary world.
• Sassen’s concept of the global city is a
emphasis on the flow of information and
capital.
Saskia Sassen

• She argued that cities are major nodes in the

interconnected systems of information and money,
and the wealth that they capture is intimately
related to the specialized businesses that facilitate
these flows – financial institutions, consulting
firms, accounting firms, law firms and media
organizations.
• She points out that the concept of Global City
eludes the national level in which the city is
located geographically but rather exudes a more
global character because of the interconnected
and integrated platforms of its activities.
Essential Traits of a Global City

1. There is an apparent presence of a

variety of international financial
services notably in finance, insurance,
real estate, banking, accountancy and
marketing.

Financial institutions are indispensible for

global cities in as much as trade,
commerce and finance is almost second
nature to these cities.
Essential Traits of a Global City

2. Headquarters of several multinational

corporations.

Global cities are preferred location for

multinational corporation (MNC)
investment because they host advanced
producer services, their cosmopolitan
environments and their
interconnectedness to the international
market place.
Essential Traits of a Global City

3. The existence of financial headquarters,

a stock exchange, and major financial
institutions.

At the heart of global cities are financial

transactions that beat at every turn. The
proximity and accessibility of banking,
stock exchange and other financial
institutions are a key element in the
growth and proliferation of global cities.
Essential Traits of a Global City

4. Domination of the trade and economy of

a large surrounding area.

Global cities are dominant business and

commercial hubs where capital and
investment flow operates at a massive
scale. Global cities are the necessary
trading and commercial hubs of the
Information Age.
Essential Traits of a Global City

5. Major manufacturing centers with port

and container facilities.

Most global cities like HongKong possess

massive port and container infrastructures
to facilitate further international commerce
and trade.
Essential Traits of a Global City

6. Considerable decision-making power on

a daily basis and at a global level.

Global cities posses the capacity to create an

immediate impact with this decisions, actions and
policy directions. This is because of their
importance, in the global economic field that their
respective decisions whether political, economic
or even socio-cultural possess a relatively huge
global appeal.
Essential Traits of a Global City

7. Centers of new ideas and innovation in

business, economics, culture and
politics.

Global cities will always be present due to

the conglomeration of people present as
well as the architecture for development that
is firmly established including numerous
research and development facilities.
Essential Traits of a Global City

8. Focal point of media and communication

for global networks.

Chalaby (2005) suggests that media

conglomerates have adopted new
organizational structures, within which
headquarters grant affiliates increased
autonomy, strengthen their specialization,
and connect them into an interdependent
corporate network.
 Essential Traits of a Global
City
9. Dominance of the national region with
great international significance.

The dominance of the global city over the

national region is very much evident nowadays.
Demographics played a vital role. In addition,
structural shifts in the global economy, changes
in the nature of international challenges and
improved intercity organizational techniques
have all combined to elevate cities on the global
stage.
 Essential Traits of a Global
City
10. High percentage of residents
employed in the services sector and
information sector.

The presence of technologically driven business

also necessitates that employment patterns in
most global cities be directed towards a
manpower capital pool that is also information
shield. This explains why the demand for
business and IT related graduate is relatively
large especially for most global cities.
 Essential Traits of a Global
City
11. High-quality educational institutions,
including renowned universities,
international student attendance and
research facilities.

Global cities are destination of choice

especially for higher learning nad ,ore engaged
scholarship. Global cities posses very
commendable literacy rates and is usually the
locale of highly renowned universities.
 Essential Traits of a Global
City
12. Multi-functional infrastructure offering
some of the best legal, medical and
entertainment facilities in the world.

The growth and development in most Global

cities also enables these locales to be important
destinations of some of the most prestigious
legal and medical services established. In
addition, the infrastructures, ease and effective
transportation have also made these global cities
as entertainment and tourism capitals.
 Essential Traits of a Global
City
13. High diversity in language, culture,
religion and ideologies.

The cultural dynamics of global cities can be

partly seen in the presence of Urban spaces.
The culture of cities manifests itself in the
materiality of streets, buildings or signs. Urban
space is also the site of multiple rites and
practices that range spirituality and artistic
performances to daily life.
 Seven Fundamental “Global
City” Hypotheses
Sassen (2001) presents her hypotheses
for a global city and its increasing role in the
economic aspect of a nation-state:
1.The geographic dispersal of economic
activities that marks globalization is a key
factor feeding the growth and importance of
central corporate functions.
2.These central functions become so complex
that increasingly the headquarters of large
global firms outsource them.
 Seven Fundamental “Global
City” Hypotheses
3. Those specialized service firms engaged in
the most complex and globalized markets
are subject to agglomeration economies.
4. The more headquarters outsource their
most complex, un-standardized functions,
particularly those subject to uncertain and
changing markets, the freer they are to opt
for any location.
5. These specialized service firms need to
provide a global service which has a meant
 Seven Fundamental “Global
City” Hypotheses
global network of affiliates and strengthening
of cross border city-to-city transactions and
networks.
6. The economic fortunes of these cities become
increasingly disconnected from their broader
hinterlands or even their national economies.
7. The growing informalization of a range of
economic activities which find their effective
demand in these cities.
Three Key Tendencies from the
Hypotheses
1. The concentration of wealth in the hands of
owners, partners and professionals
associated with the high-end firms in this
system.
2. The growing disconnection between the
city and its region.
3. The growth of a large marginalized
population that has a very hard time
earning a living in the marketplace defined
by these high-end activities.
 Migration, Mobility and the
Global city
• The rise of globalization, in a massive scale
has influenced the creation of the Global city
has also created avenues for the people to
migrate.
• In this era of globalization, the world is now
“borderless” in which capital, information and
production can be moved across national
borders seamlessly.
• Globalization redefines the relationships
between economic production and
territoriality, social processes and institutions.
 Migration, Mobility and the
Global city
• Global cities are attractive to firms due to
possibility of being able to tap a diverse pool of
highly skilled labor, including the expatriate.
• Global cities are central to the development of
the global economy in general and
employment-oriented migration in particular.
• In global cities, lowly skilled migrants are
equally attractive.
• An increasing migration tendency and the
desire to live in the cities bring several
problems closely knit to urbanization.