Rethinking Globalization—The Impact of Central Governments on World Cities

Abstract

The “world city” and “global city” theses have emerged as central paradigms in urban studies. Indeed, a wave of new textbooks in sociology, political science, and geography have been oriented around these ideas (Sassen 1994; Short and Kim 1999; Abrahamson 2004). The general argument is that advanced telecommunications, global financial markets, and transnational corporations have led to a global division of labor and the rise of global or world cities as the strategic nodes in a global economic network (Smith and Feagin 1987; Knox 1995; Harrigan and Vogel 2003, pp. 154–5). Globalization determines the city’s place in the new hierarchy of cities. Researchers have suggested that the rise of world cities marks a new international order characterized in part by the declining relevance of nation-states (Friedmann 1986; King 1990; Ross and Trachte 1990; Knox 1995; Sassen 2001a; Taylor 2004). In the new order, world cities are interdependent, yet they also compete with one another through a hierarchically structured network of cities (Friedmann and Wolff 1982; Friedmann 1986; Knox 1995; Sassen 2001a).