L20: A world of cities

Question 1

What is the world cities/global cities approach and what does it tell us about how the world works?

Answer 1

Most geographers see global cities in terms of command and control economies. This means we see the world through a very capitalistic lens

Question 2

What ways are there to think about how cities are global beyond the world/global cities approach?

Answer 2

APS, Impact on culture, purely by size

Question 3

What are ‘mobilities’ and ‘policy mobilities’ and on which practices and politics of urban-global connection do these concepts shed light?

Question 4

Community

Question 5

bifurcated global city

Question 6

Advanced Producer Services (APS)

Answer 6

Ecosystem of services needed by transnational corporations to operate efficiently (ex. banks, marketing, law firms)
- cluster in bug cities

Question 7

globalizing cities

Answer 7

Term that indicates that globalization is processes not an end, effects all cities

Question 8

Citadel geography

Answer 8

Fortified area in a city, typically citadel vs. ghetto division

Question 9

Policy mobilities

Answer 9

Study how a policy is made in a global context. Policies travel through networks. They are shaped and conditioned by the political context , need to look at them in a global context

Question 10

Mobilities approach

Answer 10

The change from studying the world as a snapshot to studying movement and how it affects people’s lives. This means studying urban transportation, migration, etc.

Question 11

Examples of ancient ‘global’ cities

Answer 11

• Timbuktu: Salt and gold industry in the 16th century
• Tenochtitan: Huge city in Mexico in the 13th-15th century
• Cahokia: Center for North American trade between 1000-1150
• Melaka: center for spice in the 14th-15th century

Question 12

What are the multiple definitions of a “global city”

Answer 12

largest? Cities with religious/cultural significance? Political influence? Oppositional struggle?

Question 13

Global cities scholarship

Answer 13

Emerged in the 1980’s and for most urbanist’s global cities are “command and control” with sites for transnational corporations to have head quarters

Question 14

Characteristics of “global cities”

Answer 14

• integrated into the global economy
• sites of power
• clear urban hierarchy
• have clusters of transnational elite professionals
• divide and tense

Question 15

World cities vs. Global cities

Answer 15

World city: seen in terms of powerful politics, development of trade, culture and education

Global city: considered to be a center which includes not only trade, influential political activity, educational and cultural attributes but also located in there headquarters of TNCs and international organizations, prevailing financial and service sectors, information technology, innovations, sports mega-events hosting.

Question 16

Saskia Sassen

Answer 16

• Very influential in global cities scholarship
• work focusses on which cities have major clusters of aps networks and how they are generated
• argues against myth of universal benefit
• argues that myth of ongoing erosion of significance of place and distance is controlled by aps firms

Question 17

Critiques of the dominant global cities approach

Question 18

Jennifer Robinson’s 3 main critiques of global cities research

Question 19

What are some ways in which Montreal could be understood as “global”? What is “global” about it?