When the Lights Turn off. Rio de Janeiro’s Wannabe Global City Trajectory

Abstract

When the famous Saskia Sassen’s book “The Global City” was published (1991), she mentioned only three cities as effectively global cities (New York, London, and Tokyo). However, in the last few decades, we have assisted to a proliferation of global cities worldwide, as points of the emerging network of global interconnections. This phenomenon implies a complex assemblage of institutions and different actors. Becoming a global city means elaborating a texture of convergence between State and Regional institutions, private capital, and global actors (multinational corporations, global institutions, financial institutions), as well as an active role “from below” (migration to the city, civil society limelight, local entrepreneurship etc.). Therefore, at the swing between the Millennium, when the so-called BRICS counties started to emerge, each of them invested in creating their own global cities. This article investigates the strategy adopted by the Brazilian State and its articulation to transform Rio de Janeiro into a Global city, particularly focusing on the decade of global events hosted within the city from 2007 to the Olympics of 2016. Moreover, the analysis focuses on the first legacy of this strategy of urban transformation.