The Global City Tradition

Abstract

For an opening chapter of a book titled Global City Challenges, it seems to be appropriate to begin with a terminological clarification. Today, many authors use the terms ‘global’ and ‘world city’ either interchangeably or, if they opt for one of the two terms, do not provide a rationale for their choice. Both implys that no significant conceptual differences are being attached to the terms. This view has been challenged by Derudder (2006, 2034) who claims that ‘world’ and ‘global city’, as employed by Friedmann and Sassen, refer to ‘very different analytical frameworks’, namely the spatial distribution of economic power more generally in the case of Friedmann and the geography of the production of the inputs that constitute the capability for global economic control in the case of Sassen. Though I agree that there are important differences between the concepts of Friedmann and Sassen (most significantly Sassen’s exclusive focus on producer service firms and hence her disregard of multi- or transnational corporations), I disagree with Derudder’s notion that the two have ‘very different’ (ibid.) takes on the role of cities in economic globalization. In fact, I see Friedmann’s world cities closer to Sassen’s global cities than to earlier notions of world cities as capitals of empires or as the top of the global power hierarchy, because both are, as I shall argue, concerned with networked cities engaged in the articulation and governance of cross-border economic activities.

The key indicator of global city status is whether a city contains the capabilities for servicing, managing, and financing the global operations of firms and markets.

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The question is whether coordination and specialized servicing of global firms and markets is taking place.

(Sassen, 2001, 359, 361)