ancient cities

316 Globalization
globalization has provided new outlets for capital,
competitive intercity relations have given way to
cooperation. The outcome is “a contemporary
world city network” linked to global capitalist
prosperity.
In short, the global city paradigm has evolved
and matured since the 1980s. What started as an
attempt to give shape to a concept and emergent
field of study led to a the proliferation of new
research questions and is now preoccupied with
overcoming premature generalizations expressed in
the initial formulations while also replacing them
with more nuanced accounts of the spatial, temporal,
and scalar contexts that influence the formation
of global cities and urban outcomes worldwide.
Questions still remain. One is whether there is
some implicit or unexplored assumption that
global cities can exist only in economically vigorous
nations or in those in transition to such status.
This pivots on whether global cities generate
national prosperity or national prosperity generates
global cities. The evidence suggests, for
already poor countries at least, that it might be the
absence of global linkages that thwarts urban
prosperity or another mediating factor independent
of the linkage. There also are methodological
concerns. Is it possible to pursue reliable theory
building (let alone testing) about global cities if
most research is focused on “like” or developed
cases? How much of the shift in emphasis to the
generative economic impact of the global city is
owed to timing, including the fact that more scholars
now are examining major cities in a post-
Fordist period when the global economy itself may
have transformed considerably, at least in comparison
to the post–World War II period when
cities were first examined in a global context?
Diane Davis and
Gerardo del Cerro Santamaría
See also Globalization; Sassen, Saskia; Urban System;
World City
Further Readings
Borja, J. and M. Castells. 1997. Local y global. La
gestión de las ciudades en la era de la información
(Local and Global: The Management of Cities in the
Information Era). Madrid: Taurus.
Davis, Diane E. 2005. “Cities in a Global Context: A
Brief Intellectual History.” International Journal of
Urban and Regional Research 29(1):92–109.
King, A. 1990. Global Cities: Post-imperialism and the
Internationalization of London. New York:
Routledge.
Lo, F.-C. and Y. Yeung. 1998. Globalization and the
World of Large Cities. New York: UN University
Press.
Sassen, S. 2002. The Global City: New York, London,
and Tokyo, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Scott, A. J., ed. 2002. Global City-Regions: Trends,
Theory, Policy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Short, J. R. and Y.-H. Kim. 1999. Globalization and the
City. Harlow, UK: Longman.
Taylor, P. J. 2004. World City Network: A Global Urban
Analysis. New York: Routledge.
Gl o b a l i z a t i o n
Globalization entails a growing economic, social,
political, and cultural interdependence between
different nations and localities. It is a process
made possible by advanced technology, which
drives both the speed and volume of cross-border
transactions. These transactions cover a wide
range of goods and services, capital flows, and
information. Since the 1970s, globalization has
become a powerful force in almost all aspects of
our lives, with hardly a place in the world
untouched by this phenomenon. From business
corporations located in New York City to street
vendors in Mumbai (Bombay), all have found
themselves part of a worldwide, seamless, and
indivisible web of interconnected parts.
Politics plays a pivotal role in globalization.
Globalization has magnified interactions among
states, localities, and social movements throughout
the world. Signs of this are visible in the rise of
multilateral organizations, regional pacts, and talk
of a borderless world. States, localities, nongovernmental
organizations, and labor unions increasingly
ignore old boundaries and are driven by the seemingly
contradictory stimuli of cooperation and competition.
For some, this has opened new worlds of
opportunity where masses of people can be mobilized
for democratic ends. This interaction, both in
place and across cyberspace, makes government