GLOBAL POPULATION AND MOBILITY

Chapter V. Unit 1

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Chapter V. Unit 1

THE GLOBAL CITY

Objectives
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1. To Identify the attributes of a global city
2. To analyze how cities serve as engines of globalization
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I. The Concept of Global City

The eradication of trade barriers and the reduction in transportation

and communication costs, made individuals very mobile. The unprecedented
mobility of individuals became evident in the contemporary period. Places
that offer the products of globalization become the target of these individu-
als. As a result, these places eventually became centers of globalization.
Scholars such as Saskia Sassen identified these places and named them as
‘global cities’. “The global city is therefore the main physical and geo-
graphic playground of the globalizing forces’(Colic-Peisker, 2014).
Sassen argued that the concept of gobal city is associated with the
flow of information and capital. Cities are major nodes in the interconnected
systems of information and money, and the wealth that they capture is inti-
mately related to the specialized businesses that facilitate those flows.
Sassen also pointed out that these flows are no longer tightly bound to na-
tional boundaries and systems of regulation (Little, 2013).
Associated with the concept of global city is the idea of cosmopoli-
tanism. he idea of cosmopolitanism usually invokes pleasant images of
travel, exploration and “worldly” pursuits enjoyed by those who have bene-
fited from globalization and who can, in some ways, consider themselves
“citizens of the world” (Colic-Peisker ,2010). However, in the capitalist con-
text, such cosmopolitanism often focuses on consumption in global cities,
where everyday life is significantly shaped by commercial culture, retail and
shopping (Zukin, 1998: 827). Corollary, Sassen’s idea of global city focuses
on the flow of capital and information.
From her arguments about the modern global city, she stressed seven
hypotheses:
1 The geographic dispersal of economic activities that marks globaliza-
tion, along with the simultaneous integration of such geographically

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dispersed activities, is a key factor feeding the growth and importance
of central corporate functions.
2 These central functions become so complex that increasingly the
headquarters of large global firms outsource them: they buy a share
of their central functions from highly specialized service firms.
3 Those specialized service firms engaged in the most complex and
globalized markets are subject to agglomeration economies.
4 The more headquarters outsource their most complex, unstandardized
functions, particularly those subject to uncertain and changing mar-
kets, the freer they are to opt for any location.
5 These specialized service firms need to provide a global service which
has meant a global network of affiliates ... and a strengthening of
cross border city-to-city transactions and networks.
6 The economic fortunes of these cities become increasingly discon-
nected from their broader hinterlands or even their national
economies.
7 One result of the dynamics described in hypothesis six, is the growing
informalization of a range of economic activities which find their effec-
tive demand in these cities, yet have profit rates that do not allow
them to compete for various resources with the high-profit making
firms at the top of the system Little, 2013).

From these hypotheses, Little citing Sassen pointed three key tenden-
cies that seem to follow:

1. concentration of wealth in the hands of owners, partners, and profes-

sionals associated with the high-end firms in this system;
2. growing disconnection between the city and its region;
3. growth of a large marginalized population that has a very hard time
earning a living in the marketplace defined by these high-end activities

From these tendencies, modern global cities are gradually becoming

known for these features:

1. a widening separation in quality of life between a relatively small elite

and a much larger marginalized population;
2. a growth of high-security gated communities and shopping areas; and
3. dramatically different graphs of median income for different socioeco-
nomic groups (Sassen, 1991: Little, 2013).

From these features, Sassen identified three global cities based on

primarily economic criteria. These cities are New York, London and Tokyo.

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Global cities, according to Sassen, are the ‘com- mand centres’, the main
nodes of triumphant global capitalism (’(Colic-Peisker, 2014).

However, decades after Sassen launched the concept of global city,

more and more cities worldwide are moving to attain the status as global
cities. Contemporary global cities are becomingly known for these transfor-
mative features:

1. concentration of not only financial but ‘productive services’ such as in-

formation technology, law and accountancy
2. home to finance, commerce and research and development, facilitated
by massive foreign capital inflows - China (Wu, 2000)
3. efficient global transport infrastructure and growing professional ser-
vice sector (Singapore)
4. ‘symbolic economy’, based on abstract products such as financial instru-
ments, information and ‘culture’ (arts, fashion, music, etc.)
5. ‘landscapes of consumption’ (Zukin, 1998: 825)
6. concentrations of geopolitical power, and cultural and trendsetting pow-
erhouses, higher education hubs and playgrounds of creative industries
(e.g. arts, fashion and design)
7. its key workforce is the professional class. These ‘knowledge workers’
are not necessarily part of the core wealth and power elite of global cap-
italism, but are a highly (globally) mobile, career-minded middle class
(Colic-Peisker, 2010).
8. global cities are characterized by occupational and income polarization
(Sassen, 1991)
9. represent ‘brain hubs’ (concentrations of innovative people and firms)
(Moretti, 2012; Solimano, 2006)
10. Provide good ‘human ecosystems’ for cutting-edge businesses, provid-
ing all the support functions or ‘secondary services’ for the innovators
(Moretti, 2012; Solimano, 2006).

From these contemporary features, Colic-Peisker pointed out that the

list of global cities expanded in the twenty first century. Following the crite-
ria set by the Japanese Mori Foundation for the determination of global
cities is the declaration of the following as global cities:

1. New York

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2. London
3. Paris
4. Tokyo
5. Singapore

The criteria set by the Japanese Mori Foundation’s Global Power City
Index are as follow:

1. economy,
2. research and development,
3. cultural interaction, liveability,
4. environment and
5. accessibility

II. Mobility and Migration

The modern global city’s ability to attract the creative and innovative
minds led to the influx of professional migrants. If a city possesses this abil-
ity then it deserves the status of a global city. This ‘magnetic character’ (as
called by the Japanese Mori Foundation) of global cities entails the hyper-
mobility of young professionals whose services are always in-demand in ma-
jor cities worldwide. As a consequence of their hyper-mobility, life in the
global city is always fluid. As a consequence of the fluid lifestyle and needs
of these knowledge workers the services of the low-paid workers coming
from the outskirts of the region are also needed. Thus, the influx of profes-
sionals in the commercial centres brought with it the concomitant increase
of ‘low-paid workers who deliver personal and labour-intensive services:
cleaning, child-care, delivery, res- taurants and eateries, catering, mainte-
nance, transport, hotels, domestic help and retail’ (Sassen, 1991; Zukin,
1998; Colic-Peisker, 2010).

This pattern of migration in the global city gave birth to economic and
social polarization and gentrification. According to Sassen (1991), global
cities are characterized by occupational and income polarization, with the
highly paid profes- sional class on the one end and providers of low-paid
services on the other (Colic-Peisker, 2010) . Related to the idea of polariza-
tion is the concept of gentrification which Colic-Peisker described as a
process of social class polarization and residential segregation of the afflu-
ent from the poor.

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III. Polarization in the Global City (Manifestations)

Housing

Gentrified Inner City Outer Areas

• Have expensive real estate because in • The opposite happens with less attrac-
tive and less liveable outer areas with
a highly developed and sensitive hous-
fewer job opportunities and services
ing mar- ket (a ‘thick’, dynamic hous- (Wood, 2004)
ing market with much supply and de-
mand) the attractive features and ad-
vantages of an urban area end up be-
ing readily capitalized into higher
property prices.

Workforce

Professional, inventors and innova- Low-skilled service workers

tive workforce

• most footloose • often move jobs by necessity

• having in general more control and • not as ready to move between cities
autonomy in their workplace and countries
• often change jobs and many are ready
to relocate to another city or country

• “cosmopolitans” according to Merton • “locals” according to Merton (1968)

(1968) • The community life of ‘locals’ was pre-
• The ‘cosmopolitans’ (Gouldner, 1989: occupied with local problems.
401, calls them ‘itinerants’) were,
more ‘ecumenical’ and sought social
status outside the local community,
usually from their professional peers,
because their local community could
neither validate nor reward their pro-
fessional competence (Merton, 1968;
Colic-Peisker, 2010).

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IV. Community in the Global City

There is no cosmopolitanism without diversity (Colic-Peisker, 2010).

This is the evident feature of a global city. The polarization that the global
city possess leads to a diversified population. This diversity could either
unify or disintegrate a given community.

As a city of opportunities, global cities will continue to ‘attract the ex-

tremes of poor, migrant and footloose populations, but also the affluent and
the super rich/ (Colic-Peisker, 2010). The migration of this segmented popu-
lation will give birth to an economically, socially and culturally diverse pop-
ulation. Consequently, ‘global cities become a home to a visible set of pro-
tagonists of the ‘urban life- style’: artists, bohemians, new media designers,
gay and youth subcultures, university students and immigrants, creating a
remarkable and also highly visible ‘ethnic’ and cultural diversity. These
groups with their more of less ‘alternative’ and eclectic lifestyles have a nat-
ural home in ‘global cities’, and exert a singular influence in defining vari-
ous urban subcultures, often giving character to certain areas within big
cities’ (Colic-Peisker, 2010).

Within this colourful urban diversity also reside different types of

marginalities based on gender, ethnicity, culture and class: single mothers,
lesbians, recent immigrant and refugee groups, backpackers, the homeless,
the elderly, all those who indeed cannot be so readily integrated into the
dominant economic paradigm. Their social purpose is therefore in the realm
of community – usually rather marginal and mutually segregated communi-
ties sharing geographical places but not lifestyles and life-worlds. One of
the flipsides of this is that coexistence of various disparate groups does not
constitute a wider city community, and fragmentation born out of diversity
rarely leads to active citizenship. Consumption, style, work and commercial-
ized leisure take priority over public and civic concerns as long as the urban
space is functional for a majority of its residents. Because of this disparity,
the character of a nurturing character of a community gradually disappears.
As observe by Bauman in Britain and America, ‘community’ … sounds in-
creasingly hollow because inter-human bonds that require a ‘large and con-

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tinuous investment of time and effort’, and are worth the sacrifice of imme-
diate individual interest, are increasingly frail and temporary.

Thus Colic-Peisker (2010) emphasized that the shifting and ‘liquid’ life
in the global city leaves little firm ground for anyone to lodge an anchor.
Hypermobility of competitive cosmopolitans does not allow much room for
community life (Colic-Peisker, 2010). Dwellers of the global city, regardless
of the population density, are likely to be spatially and emotionally detached
from their neighbours and co-locals, and devoted to their professional pur-
suits, that usually require them to be highly connected and ‘networked’ in
an instrumental way, these days increasingly through the Internet. Bauman
diagnosed a ‘disintegration of locally grounded, shared community living’
(Bauman, 2005: 78) and argued that community has been largely replaced
by ‘network: a matrix of random connections and disconnecions’.

REFERENCES:

Sassen, Saskia.( 2005). “The Global City: Introducing a Concept.” Brown

Journal of World Affairs XI(2): 27-43.

Colic-Peisker. (2016). (2016) The SAGE Handbook of Globalization: “Mobil-

ity, Diversity and Community in the Global City”.

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LEARNING ACTIVITY

Activity:
Individual sharing of first city experience

• Make a creative presentation about your “first city/cosmopolitan experi-

ence”
• You can narrate your story using powerpoint, video presentation or reen-
actment.

ASSESSMENT

QUIZ

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