Talk:Global city/Temp Translation of Global Cities in German Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Global Cities are cities that are part of a new transnational city-system. They contain the main financial markets and the headquarters of banks and transnational corporations. Furthermore they contain companies that deliver company services like law, finance & consulting companies, advertising agencies and services in accounting and controlling. The term was introduced in 1990s by the Urban Sociologist Saskia Sassen.
Contents |
[edit] Economic Preconditions
The Globalisation of the world economy since the 1908s was fundamental to the formation of a transnational city-system. This development can be seen as a massive increase in foreign direct investments that targeted mainly the industrialized countries but also also the developing countries. Transnational corporations gained importance and the industrial production was increasingly dispersed around the world following cost effectiveness. Especially labor intensive industries were displaced to Maquiladora in developing countries with low wages. At the same time the financial markets were deregulated (and "neue Finanzierungsinstrumente wie Derivate entwickelt." - don´t know how to translate this)
[edit] Features
The growing control functions of the industrial production that is now dispersed around the globe concentrate within the global cities. This concentration was made possible by the development by new communication technology like the internet. This allows for the efficient remote control of production even at distant sites and the comparison of the productivity of countries, sites and companies.
The formation of global finance and service-centers creates an extended demand for company services located in close neighborhood. Besides the growing demand concerning higher services there is also a growing demand concerning simple services like cleaning staff, couriers, security personal and high grade culture and entertainment services for the highly paid specialists working in the core industries of the global city economy. This leads to a constant migration to the global cities since the 1990s that often developed communities of migrant within these cities.
[edit] The transnational city-system
Global cities are the center of a forming transnational city-system. They relate closer to each other than to their close surrounding - with their links to the surrounding getting weaker and weaker. As an Example the development of real estate prices in districts dominated by the service sector only relates to these of other global cities rather than to to the prices on the national market.
New York, Tokio, London or Paris are said to be examples of global cities. In Germany Frankfurt am Main is called a global city, despite its low number of inhabitants of below 700.000. Even smaller - with around 360.000 inhabitants (without the conurbation) Zürich in Switzerland is also called a global city because of its relevance as financial center.
Many cities that used to have an important position within the national city-systems are losing importance. This is especially true in regards to the big industrialized regions like the Ruhr Area, some port cities like Marseille oder Naples and many big cities in the developing countries that mainly consist of slums like Lagos. On the other Hand cities like Singapur, Hong-Kong, Seoul and Manila developed to sub-centers of global cities as they specialized in the direct control of transnational production-networks.
The term World City is often used as a Synonym for global city but there is a difference between these two terms. The Wold-City is a traditional political and cultural center of worldwide importance. Global city can be seen as an economic center. Still both city categories can be applied to the same city. Often the importance as a political and cultural center and one of the world economy are to be found closely related to each other.
[edit] Literatur
Saskia Sassen: Metropolen des Weltmarktes, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1996, Campus, ISBN 3-593-35459-4 Mario Candeias: Neoliberalismus, Hochtechnologie, Hegemonie, Berlin 2004, Argument, ISBN 3-88619-299-7
[edit] Weblinks
[[Kategorie:Stadt]] [[Kategorie:Raumplanung]] - Categories "City" and "Urbanism"
