Science 3
Science 3
Science 3
CABIGON
Cities in Globalization
JOSEFINA V. CABIGON
ABSTRACT
The second view is that cities are now reflecting a clear culture-
economy overlap, with global cities such as New York, London, Paris,
and Tokyo emerging as centers of the global economy and cultural
industries and are also the prominent destinations of immigrants who
tend to be vulnerable to exploitation and to congregate in enclaves.
Major cities in the US are reflecting a city growth coalition of profit
seekers, political leaders, and cultural institutions resulting in the
economic becoming cultural and the cultural becoming economic.
Marketing the city’s cultural offerings aims for both consumption of
Introduction
Understanding the nature of cities in globalization is essential knowledge. Cities
all share common traits (e.g., a market-oriented nature). They also possess a
potential for dualism (promise: wealth, innovation, and social change; and trouble:
prostitution, poverty, crime, and pollution, among many others). Cities matter
greatly to us globally and locally. They are the center of trade, commercial
establishments, business firms, advanced culture and technology. They are the
destinations of immigrants hoping and searching for employment. Cities represent
the most often used and influential places in the world. Our success and survival
in that world today and tomorrow depends on the knowledge we have about
such places. Cities are particularly challenging entities to understand. Apart from
having multiple personalities, they offer very different faces to differing people.
Equally important is that they are constantly evolving, impacting on our lives and
the lives of others.
places or specific locations in space that provide an anchor and a meaning to who
we are. The other perspective is that cities are a process. For instance, Castells
(1996) views cities as a process by which centers are connected in a global
network.
are three prevailing arguments about the nature and meaning of this
interconnectedness (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt and Perraton, 1999). The first is
the hyperglobalist’s argument that there exists a single global (borderless) economy
in which states are increasingly the “decision-takers” and not the “decision-makers”.
The decision-makers today are global finance and corporate capital. The Group
of 7 countries, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade
Organization are institutions nurturing this single global economy.
can embody a critical mass of people and ideas with the skills and flexibility to
create the necessary new production. Import replacement as a process requires
connections with other cities. To gain economic wealth, there has to be a network
of cities. A clear example is Hong Kong, which has been economically independent
as a result of relations of interdependence in the world economy.
The second insightful work is that of Friedman (1986, 1995), who started
world city literature in relation to planning. He generated seven (7) world city
hypotheses re the spatial organization of the new international division of labor.
He links urbanization processes to global economic forces. Taylor (2004)
summarized this linking in three theses: First is the functional thesis contending
that structural changes in cities depend upon the integration of a city into the world
economy, and consequently upon the functions (headquarters, financial centers,
and articulators) assigned to the city. Cities link a national or regional economy to
the global economy.
Third is the global-local thesis stating that the city’s role in the world
economy is directly reflected in the structure and change of local economy. Control
functions of cities mean that they are dominated by a number of expanding economic
sectors relating to management, finance, corporate services, and the media. This
pattern has resulted in the massive growth of highly paid economic elites –
corporate managers and specialist professionals – who provide a local market for
a vast army of low-skilled workers servicing the new rich, hence, the creation of a
highly dichotomized labor force. The world city outcome is an extremely polarized
social structure. In Friedman’s later work (1995), cities are described as centers
through which money, workers, information, and commodities flow. Thereby they
articulate the economic relations of their surrounding field or region into the global
economy. It is the scale of a city’s spatial articulation that orders the cities as
global (e.g., New York), multinational (e.g., Miami), national (e.g., Mexico), and
sub-national/regional (e.g., San Francisco).
The fifth work discussed in greater detail in this paper is Taylor’s (2004),
which is elaborated on for three reasons. First, Taylor built his work on those of
Jacobs (1984), Friedman (1986 and 1995), Castells (1996) and Sassen (1991),
who provided him inspiration and insights in examining further the nature of cities
as a process in globalization. This will be demonstrated in the succeeding section,
especially with regard to his conceptual framework. Secondly, Taylor examined
all of the cities in the world in great detail, and therefore his work may be taken as
the most global and thorough in the world city network discourse. Third, his
work illustrates how a particular social science discipline with its specialization
can be multidisciplinary in approach, to understand a phenomenon better. Being
a geographer, he focused on how world city data can be gathered, used, processed,
and analyzed based on the training one has received and his background.
It may have been obvious at this point that the five works just discussed
earlier focused on cities as a process in global economy. The analyses center
mainly on the economic dimension of the nature of cities in globalization. As
stated earlier, cities today are not only centers of trade, commercial establishments,
and business firms, but are also centers of advanced culture and technology. As
destinations of immigrants hoping and searching for employment in the globalizing
world, cities and their cultures involve an adaptive process. City planners
simultaneously consider economic and cultural dimensions in order to keep global
firms within their jurisdictions for their own rapid growth and development.
related to globalization, and the destinations of immigrants are almost in the cities
in countries of destination. Cultural adaptation is an interesting and related subject
of inquiry. Insights gained from Abrahamson’s work are then helpful to complement
the insights gained from Taylor’s work in understanding the nature of cities in
globalization.
After reviewing the bases and pinpointing the main points of these two
evidence-based views, the paper goes further in emphasizing the role of other
social scientists, as well as identifying some important research gaps in understanding
cities in globalization more fully, particularly in the field of Demography. Problems
faced by demographers in contributing new knowledge in the pursuit of more
comprehensive understanding of cities in globalization are dealt with.
All four key agencies taken together are primarily responsible for shaping
the world city network. However, these processes do not operate singly to sustain
the network. They operate in conjunction with one another in quite complex
ways. Taylor identifies two links: One is the link between service firms and cities
of mutual reciprocity. An example of this link is Japanese and American banks
with major offices in London having vested in the future success of London as an
international financial center. While equally, London has a vested interest in its
Japanese and American banks doing well. The other is the link between business
service sectors and the nation-states. An example of this link is the
professionalization of knowledge-intensive services, with the state either legitimizing
self-regulating (national) professional associations or else regulating directly. In
turn, these professionals have manned the state apparatus to enable the state to
function (accountants, management consultants, advertisers with their public
relations skills becoming prominent in the government circle).
Although the four key agencies produce and reproduce the world city
network, Taylor focuses on the service firms in his research. The main reasons
are twofold. One is that the service firms are the economic agents that generate
wealth upon which the network has been built and is sustained (Jacobs, 1984).
The other is that the service firms, through their office networks, have created the
overall structure of the network.
His data
Taylor used 2000 data on 100 firms. These are 18 accountancy firms, 15
advertising firms, 23 banking/finance firms, 11 insurance firms, 16 law firms, and
17 management consultancy firms in each of the 315 cities in the world with these
data collected.
image, the largest scale of units in today’s meta-geography (e.g., world divided
into continents, map of nation-states). Fourth is that it means anchors that tie a
society to both physical and metaphysical worlds. And fifth is that it is a spatial
configuration through which sense can be made of human social activities and
ideals.
His findings
There are three findings of Taylor in this research that are very relevant in
understanding cities as a process in globalization. His first basic finding is the
evidence of a world city network with a particular geography that is city-centered.
“City-centered” means the command power remaining in core-located cities and
network power in non-core cities. The interrelations between and among cities
impinge on future social change.
His first inference and related ideas based on his first basic finding
He has four inferences based on this basic finding. His first inference is
that globalization needs to be interpreted through world city lenses and world-city
concepts looking at the hegemony cycles of Wallerstein (1984) in terms of meta-
geography as defined earlier. He also has four ideas with historical insights related
to his first inference.
The first idea is that there is a modern world system, a capitalist world-
economy, the material basis of geography, as well as the motor of the incessant
change. There are three forms of modernity defined as state of perpetual social
change. The first form is called mercantile modernity or topological meta-
geography of trade routes extending from the Philippines in the Far West to the
Moluccas (the Spice Islands) in the Far East. The Dutch Republic during the 17th
century was the hegemon, with Amsterdam as the hegemonic city. The East as the
land of plenty over the West in the world hierarchy and navigation was the key
practical knowledge. The second form is industrial modernity or centripetal meta-
geography, employed during the Industrial Revolution. United Kingdom during
the 18th and 19th centuries was the hegemon with London taking over Amsterdam
as the hegemonic city. The West over East in the world hierarchy, a core of dynamic
cities and periphery of static cities with the meta-geography defining Europeans
as superior to peoples from other parts of the world with the world map of the
British empire showing pink areas everywhere (Cook, 1984) and engineering were
the key practical knowledge. The third form is consumer modernity or mosaic
meta-geography of nation-states. The map of nation-states shows boundaries of
all states across the world resulting from decolonization. The United States during
the 20th and present centuries is the hegemon, with New York succeeding London
as the third hegemonic city. Egalitarian discourse is summed up in the slogan
“development for all”. Americanization is the world dream. Any country can
develop as long as it employs the correct development policies modeled by
Rostow’s (1960) stages of economic growth. The shift from political citizenship
to economic citizenship or consumptionship and media/advertising are the key
practical knowledge. These are in line with the needs of the United States’
multinationals working in a mosaic of national markets important in the global
strategies of advertising firms.
His second idea related to his first inference based on his first basic finding
is that there is embedded statism. Embedded statism is a mosaic meta-geography.
For instance, British trees, insects, and birds are nationalized. Natural spaces of
flows are treated as secondary to human spaces of places. Cities are nationalized
and represented as points in a territory rather than as hubs within networks in two
stages: (1) political centralization of the 16th and 17th centuries culminating in the
absolutist state of the 18th century; and (2) incorporating cities into states
(nationalization of the cities).
embedded statism, Jacobs (1984) also discussed state threats to their cities. These
state threats are massive military expenditures, unproductive subsidies to poor
regions, and promotion of unequal trade between rich and poor economies.
Specific instances are the political machinations of the European Community,
sapping the vitality of Japanese cities by rural-based political party machines and
the threat of military-economic voraciousness to contemporary US cities.
The second effect of embedded statism is that states are becoming city
creators. This, in turn, counters the primate growth of their leading city channeling
investment into a new capital city. It is as if states are jealous of their leading
cities. Creating cities that are designed to be national and not cosmopolitan is a
recipe for urban disaster. Clear examples are the failures of St. Petersburg in
Russia and Tehran in Iran.
Frankfurt” and vice versa, a dyad in a world city network where cooperative
relations interlock the cities.
The third reason for the more promising city-centric interpretation is that
many third world cities (e.g., Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Istanbul, Johannesburg,
Bangkok, Mumbai, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei, Seoul and Hong Kong), apart
from core world cities (London, New York, Paris and Tokyo), are integral to the
office location policies of important global business service firms. These firms
need strategic locations to provide worldwide provision to clients. Therefore,
some third world cities have become powerful “places to be”. This pattern is
totally different from third world cities viewed as entrepots in imperialism than
dependents in Frank’s (1969) dependency theory. However, the pattern is
consistent with Friedman’s 1986 world city hypothesis, Jones’s (1998) “globalized
business elite” and Sassen’s (2000) “new geography of strategic places” … cutting
across national borders and the old North–South divide, implying age of transition.
The fourth reason for the more favorable city-centric interpretation is that
world cities in globalization operating as a world city network are responsible for
the dispersion of economic power in a polarizing world. Service firms in these
cities are becoming cutting-edge technology enterprises. They are central to the
restructuring of the network.
Taylor’s third study finding from his research is that cities gaining freedom
from the control of nation-states are those beyond the core, where states are
weak and sometimes failing. Kinshasa and Zaire are the best examples. These
cities show prominence of space of flows. He has seven (7) inferences based on
his third finding. The first is that world cities need global networks and are therefore
intrinsically transnational. The second is that with globalization, certain critical
parts of cities’ economies are becoming less and less accountable to the
encompassing state – for instance financial markets, in which currency trading has
undermined state control of what has been a key indicator of state sovereignty.
Freeing of cities from containerization imposed by the states gives the same
transnational view of cities. For example, London is not simply Britain’s world
city. New York is not simply US’s world city any more than Milan is Italy’s world
city or Toronto is Canada’s world city. They are world cities operating through a
world city network that is reproducing cities beyond their state’s exigencies.
Taylor concludes that it is political economy that kills cities (other than
capital cities), whereas cities prosper under conditions of economical politics.
and cooperate equally in a world city network. Apparent recipe of policy confusion
is how to compete and cooperate at the same time. The reality, however, is that it
is only firms that compete (in markets), not nations (Krugman, 1994; Budd, 1998).
His seventh inference based on his third finding is that cities can reach their
wealth potential only through operating in a space of flows. Imposition of
boundaries as barriers to those flows is harmful.
regressive in nature. It can do more than service global capital. Hence, he talks
of transnational democracy in globalization.
nation-state can be made available for creating a new economical politics. This
may be feasible as world cities are polarized communities where global capital
meets democracy.
Summary
The above findings, inferences, ideas, and future insights of Taylor indicate
that cities are not creating and reacting to a simple process of globalization leading
to an overarching world city hierarchy. There is a multifaceted geography of
arenas through which cities operate not only as service centers for global capital
but as creators of economical politics (their main concern being for networks of
trade and finance). They operate as nodes in spaces of flows through a world city
network. Cooperation for a single practice and mutuality of benefits as the goal
are inherent in inter-city relations as well as spaces of places with long histories of
being distinctive communities. Hence, there are local-global and regional-global
nexuses within contemporary globalization. There is no single process of
globalization but rather multiple globalizations in which cities play a great role as
spaces of flows and places in the creation of economical politics which appear to
be more beneficial to both cities and nation-states than political economics. Along
these lines is the need for city-centric intellectual discourses economically,
demographically, politically, socially, and culturally for a more comprehensive
understanding of the nature of cities in globalization.
His findings
His main findings reveal the leading global cities (economic and cultural
hierarchy combined). New York is at the global city apex as cultural and economic
center. London, Paris, and Tokyo are in the second tier. Los Angeles is in the 3rd
tier. Toronto and Hong Kong are in the 4th tier. Frankfurt, Chicago, Osaka, Zurich,
Milan, and Singapore are specialized economic centers. Sydney emerges as a
specialized cultural center.
His scenarios
Based on his findings, he has three scenarios. First is that Sydney possesses
an economic stature to grow and match its cultural standing. Second is that the
number of global cultural centers will increase (e.g., Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro).
Third is that given the interplay between the cultural and economic dimensions,
Chicago and Frankfurt may expand as cultural centers, too.
His generalizations
He has five (5) concluding generalizations. First is that the process of
conglomeration is occurring in all types of firms (economic and cultural). Second
is that each firm makes a series of strategic decisions involving other firms, such as
when to compete and when to cooperate. Third is that the eventual economic
success of products of the cultural industry is difficult to predict; they are frequently
expensive to produce compared to economic products, and it can be a long time
before they pay any return on the investment. Fourth is that to minimize risks,
cultural firms tend to cooperate rather than compete; they compete on promotions
and advertising but not on price. Fifth is that, as with business service firms, cultural
industries create the highlypaid and lowlypaid labor force resulting in wide income
inequality in global cities.
His inferences
Like Taylor, Abrahamson has four (4) inferences related to his findings on
identifying global cities as to global economic and cultural hierarchy. First, with
the growing control of multinational corporations, vying with each other to retain
multinational corporations or lure those headquartered elsewhere into relocating,
nations try to make themselves more attractive to these firms. This typically involves
deregulation (a reflection of embedded statism which may also involve creation of
a new capital city as discussed with Taylor’s study). As the global reach of
multinationals has lessened the control of their home nations and increased inter-
nation competition, nations responded paradoxically by further relinquishing
control. This is consistent with one of Taylor’s inferences on competition through
city hierarchies between states.
who enter the sex industry each year; 50,000 Chinese, Mexican, and Polish women
are likewise brought into the US annually to work in the sex trade in the cities of
LA, Miami, New York, and San Francisco. A smaller number lands in London
and Paris.
industrial retention and office and housing development (since the 1980s). She
points out several reasons for this shift.
The first reason is that more cultural institutions in a city make it more appealing
to tourists and investors. Hence, there are more firms, more yuppies, and dinks for
a better quality of work and life. The end result is wealth (profit for capitalists and
owners of business firms, and income to city government from tourism and investment).
The second reason is that city governments are aware that competing for corporate
headquarters and producer service firms relying on highly skilled labor implies not
only lower taxes and improved infrastructure, but also appealing natural and cultural
resources (riverfront parks, sports arenas, historic districts).
The third reason is that more city officials are becoming aware of the
economic importance of tourism, hence the building or enlarging of convention
centers and subsidizing new hotels and attracting major retailers.
Fifth is that city governments and place-based business elites are becoming
more intent on marketing their cities. City promoters are shifting from the model
of selling (trying to persuade the buyer to purchase what one has) to marketing
(trying to have what the buyer wants). Cultural institutions are associated with
beauty, good taste, and higher purpose as singularly important symbolic assets for
image-conscious marketers.
Sixth is that development practitioners and scholars now appreciate that the
arts comprise a wealth-generating economic sector, one in which urban areas retain
a competitive advantage (e.g., New York with its culture industry – National
Endowment for the Arts 1981, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
1993).
The eighth reason is that the arts are lending greater legitimacy to other
urban development efforts among those who would not normally see themselves as
beneficiaries. Examples are “downtown consumption palaces” or “tourist bubble”.
The second feature of the city growth coalition is that cultural institutions
need to coalesce with business and political leaders in the urban development
scheme for their own economic needs and revitalization. Some of the cultural
institutions’ concerns about the city’s economic health may derive from the interests
of their board of trustees (capitalists), although profit-seeking cultural board
members usually grant arts professionals a great deal of autonomy in running the
institution’s operations. Cultural institutions need to bring their customers (cultural
audiences) to them, hence their locations must be made safe and secure by the
city government. Relying greatly on tourism, they have a strong interest in the
city’s overall appeal to tourists. Being heavily dependent on the availability of
local volunteers, they must be located in affluent neighborhoods that are located
in cities. Wealthy individuals and corporations are the main sources of program
funds and usually focus their donations on their hometowns. Learning that they
can benefit from being perceived as sources of economic health, state governments
and capitalists become major funding sources (examples are Ray Chambers as
financier of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Sidney Kimmel as financier
of Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts) with the city’s economic
future as their main interest.
Blurred high and popular culture as a result of this city growth coalition is the
third feature of the city growth coalition. Before 1980, the primary funders were the
individual economic elites and government, but after then, the funders were the
foundations of economic elites and government. The attracting paying audiences
before 1980 were small elite crowds, but after 1980, these audiences were the
largest possible crowd. The type of art and art audiences before 1980 promoted
high culture for the rich and popular culture for the middle class, but after 1980 there
was a mix of high and popular culture for both the rich and the middle class.
Today, the blurred high culture and popular culture is the result of broadening
to keep core elite audiences and to attract broader audiences through popularizing
techniques and commercial marketing. Museums no longer sell only postcards
and art books but a whole range of merchandise. Metropolitan Museums display
European paintings and Greek sculptures with Hollywood costumes and Armani’s
The fourth feature of the city growth coalition is the coalition of arts
advocates, economic development officials, and tourism industry staff to promote
cultural tourism.
A changing relationship between art and the economy is the fifth feature of
the city growth coalition. During the early 20th century, art and economy were
distinct, with American cultural institutions displaying the wealth of the economic
elite, and economic gain not being an aim of this elite (“pork into porcelain”).
Today, there is a close association between culture and economy. Economic elite
as well as the local officials and culture professionals collaborate to make culture
create the public image needed for economic growth and new jobs.
Summary
The studies of Abrahamson and Strom both consistently demonstrate that:
(1) the dominant cities (e.g., New York, London, and Tokyo) in the global economy
are also important nodes in the global cultural hierarchy, reflecting the prominence
of the interpenetration between global economy and culture, or the economic
becoming cultural and the cultural becoming economic with museums, galleries,
Disney stores, theaters, studios and the like interspersed among the high-rise buildings
in virtually every major global city’s financial district; (2) cultural diversions are vital
to the economies of global cities in terms of convention centers and hotels, and
theaters and restaurants – they contribute to each city’s overall image, attract tourists
and footloose business enterprises to relocate; (3) popularity begets popularity
through cultural industries being employed to sell more of the world’s commodities;
and (4) all of the leading global cities, except Tokyo and Singapore, are the destinations
of large numbers of highly diverse groups of immigrants. They bring with them their
own culture and tend to congregate in enclaves (places in which members of an
ethnic, religious, or racial group, sharing common traditions, support specialized
shopping venues such as ethnic groceries or religious goods stores), resulting in enclave
tourist attractions as well as fragmentations of the cultural dimensions of cities.
References