2. A world of cities
The ‘urban age’: > 50% of the world population now lives in (booming) cities
No straightforward transition process: contemporary urbanization must be conceptualized as a structural transformation along, and intensified interaction between, every point of an urban-rural continuum
Some staggering figures: today: 86 → > 400 cities > 1 million inhabitants
- from 2020 onwards: population growth = urban growth
Today’s changes are quantitatively and qualitatively different from earlier phases
Quantitatively: much stronger growth figures
E.g., London ( : x7) versus Lagos (1950-today: x40)
Qualitatively: decoupling ‘development’ and urbanization, new forms of urban centrality
E.g., 95% of urban growth in the ‘Global South’, New York was considered to be ‘history’ in the 70s
There are differential patterns, cf. China ↔ India ↔ Latin America and Africa

3. De ‘Pearl River Delta’

4. Re-thinking cities in globalization (1)
New York (and other cities in the 70s): decline as the only option because of the supposed ‘end of geography’ < ICT/services-nexus
However, the opposite has happened: a renewed centrality for cities < ICT/services-nexus
Why is this the case?
1) Importance of proximity in advanced services
2) Globalization 1: central marketplace for services (“you have to be there”)
3) Globalization 2: office network covering all major cities to service client
World cities/Global cities according to Saskia Sassen: sites for the production of advanced services for a global marketplace

5. The geography of Internet Traffic (telegeography.com)

6. Global cities as sites for the production of ‘producer services’

7. Global service centres based on Sassen (GaWC)

9. Declining energy input/waste output in global cities

10. Re-thinking cities in globalization (2)
Result: the world’s most connected cities in contemporary globalization are getting closer
London-Frankfurt
“A virtual office in two centres ... all those 100% are working together as one team, they’re a European team with one head, there are no two heads any more ... This comparison Frankfurt and London - what does it mean? … I think increasingly we get to the point where we say it doesn’t matter.” (German bank, London, 2001)
New York-London
“It’s amazing how this traffic increases. In that sense those two cities are moving closer together.” (US advertising, London, 2001)
World cities = Sites of interconnecting flows in a multi-scale ‘world city network’
World cities = A global-local space of interaction
World city network = aggregation of inter-city flows within contemporary globalization

11. ‘NY-LON’ Newsweek 13 Nov. 2000 (Source: Smith, 2005)

12. Times Square
New York

13. Rio de Janeiro

14. Jakarta

15. The Globalization and World Cities research group (GaWC)
GaWC: research group that has been founded to devise a method for measuring relations between cities
Starting points:
‘Globalization’: key cities cannot be purely understood in a ‘national’ framework
‘Inter-city-relations’: key cities derive their functional importance from connections with/to other cities
→ Focus on office networks of ‘producer services’ such as Deloitte = services that cover financial, legal, and general management matters, innovation,...
→Starting point: global inter-city relations < shared presence of service firms

17. WCN < shared presence of APS firms

18. Measurement of the WCN
Measurement of the WCN < a matrix of firms with information on their offices across world cities, whereby each cell describes the standardized importance of a city to a firm’s global service provision
Choice of sectors (6): accountancy, advertising, banking/finance, insurance, law, management consultancy
Choice of global service firms (100): a leading firm in the sector having offices in 15 or more different cities
Choice of cities (315): capital cities of all but the smallest states plus many other important cities in larger states
Standardized measurement of importance of a firm in a city (e.g. number of practitioners in a law firm) and their extra-locational functions (e.g. regional headquarters) < website APS firm
315 x 100 matrix summarizing global connectivity

20. The (urban) world according to GaWC

21. WCN : major changes
Decline of US cities (e.g. All cities but NY decline)
Rise of Chinese cities (Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou)
Concomitant rise of cities well-connected to Chinese cities (e.g. Sydney and Seoul)