ancient cities

which he advocates his views, and whatever philosophical
differences some geographers may have
with him, he remains widely respected.
Barney Warf
See also Urban Geography; Urban System; Urban Theory
Further Readings
Berry, Brian. 1967. Geography of Market Centers and
Retail Distribution. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall.
———. 1973. The Human Consequences of
Urbanization: Divergent Paths in the Urban
Experience of the Twentieth Century. New York: St.
Martin’s.
———. 1976. Urbanisation and Counter-urbanisation.
London: Sage.
———. 1980. “Creating Future Geographies.” Annals of
the Association of American Geographers 70:449–58.
———. 1991. Long-wave Rhythms in Economic
Development and Political Behavior. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
———. 2002. “Clara Voce Cognito.” In Geographical
Voices: Fourteen Autobiographical Essays, edited by
P. Gould and F. Pitts. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse
University Press.
Clarke, Gordon. 2004. “Brian Berry.” In Key Thinkers
on Space and Place, edited by P. Hubbard, R. Kitchin,
and G. Valentine. London: Sage.
Schaefer, Fred K. 1953. “Exceptionalism in Geography:
A Methodological Examination.” Annals of the
Association of American Geographers 43:226-49.
Warf, Barney. 2004. “Troubled Leviathan: The
Contemporary U.S. versus Brian Berry’s U.S.”
Professional Geographer 56:85–90.
Bi l B a o, Sp a i n
Bilbao seems to have gone global overnight. A
peripheral city in Western Europe with an old
industrial tradition but largely unknown to most
people outside Spain, Bilbao came to the attention
of commentators worldwide thanks to the opening
of a branch of the Guggenheim Museum in
1997—a project widely acclaimed as a resounding
success, turning the city into a destination for
global pilgrimage. Millions have visited the city to
Bilbao, Spain
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contemplate the art and admire the titanium
building that wraps the museum, a work hailed as
architect Frank O. Gehry’s masterpiece. According
to outsiders, the museum triggered the city’s revitalization.
After 20 years of decline, Bilbao’s good
economic performance since 1994 was attributed
uncritically to the Guggenheim “miracle.” New
claims were made about the role of spectacular
architecture and the arts in urban renewal and
globalization, with urban officials worldwide seriously
considering bidding for a Guggenheim for
their own cities. Bilbao became synonymous with
the Guggenheim, and many cities around the
world wanted to imitate the Basque capital’s success
and become instantly “global.”
Historical Development
A city’s fortunes, however, go beyond the reach of
a cultural artifact, regardless of how successful and
“global” it may be. Bilbao was already a globalizing
city shortly after its foundation in 1300—the
King of Castile chartered the city as a node in the
networks of trade between Castile and the world.
As the place from which Castilian wool and
Basque iron were exported to Europe, the city
played a key role in the European subsystem of
trade. Basque merchants were present and active in
the major world cities at the time. Bilbao’s development
during the following centuries shows an
expanding city struggling to preserve its commercial
freedoms vis-à-vis the Spanish state. For much
of its history, the city has been a frontier town
between Spain, Europe, and America, adapting its
commercial relations to the ebb and flow of world
markets and the success or failure of centralizing
efforts from Madrid. Whereas for most of the
Fordist period Bilbao was gradually integrated
into the Spanish economy, the current phase of
globalization, together with the high degree of
political autonomy for the Basque Country, is
again taking the city on a path to globalization.
Bilbao’s industrialization in the late nineteenth
century gave rise to its modern business elite, which
grew out of the mining business and diversified
investments in other sectors and other regions in
Spain, exemplifying the Spanishness of Basque
capitalism. At the same time, foreign economic relations
continued at a good pace in Bilbao. Exports of
local iron, in particular, reached unprecedented