New Maps, New Questions: Global Cities Beyond the Advanced Producer and Financial Services Sector

Abstract

This article broadens the discussion of cities as strategic sites in which global activities are organized. It deploys methodology commonly used to study the distribution and disproportionate concentration of advanced producer and financial services firms in order to study the office distribution of global nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and global energy corporations. It then compares the distribution of those offices to that of advanced producer and financial services firms, using data from the global and World Cities Research Network, further discovering what cities are strategic sites in all three networks, in any combination of two networks, and in only one network. Attending to the convergence and divergence of such networks opens a door to the study of network logic—the underlying dynamics of network functioning—instead of limiting the study to network structure or composition while also permitting a multi-sectoral measurement of globality.

Este artículo amplía la discusión de ciudades como lugares estratégicos en las que se organizan actividades globales. Despliega una metodología comúnmente usada para estudiar la distribución y la concentración desproporcionada de productores avanzados y firmas de servicios financieros, con el objeto de estudiar la distribución de oficinas de las organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONGs) y las corporaciones de energía globales. Luego compara la distribución de aquellas oficinas para los productores avanzados y para las firmas de servicios financieros, usando los datos de la Red de Investigación de las Ciudades Mundiales y Globales, para luego descubrir qué ciudades son lugares estratégicos en todas las tres redes, en cualquier combinación de dos redes y en solo una red. Prestando atención a la convergencia y divergencia de tales redes, se abre una puerta al estudio de la lógica de las redes—la dinámica subyacente de la función de las redes—en vez de limitar el estudio de la estructura de la red o la composición, permitiendo también una medida multisectorial de globalidad.

本文扩展了对城市的讨论，它们是组织全球行动的战略要地。本文运用了通常研究高级生产者和金融服务公司的分布及其不成比例集中问题的方法学，以期对全球非政府组织和全球能源公司的办公分布进行研究。然后，它运用来自“全球与世界城市研究网络”的数据，通过进一步讨论何种城市属于全部三种网络的、任何两种网络结合的、以及仅一种网络中的战略要地，对其机构分布和高级生产者及金融服务公司的分布进行对比。对这些网络的聚集和离散的注意为网络逻辑——网络运作的潜在动力——的研究提供了机会，而不是在允许对全球性进行多领域量度的同时又局限于研究网络的结构或组成。

이 논문은 도시에 관한 논의를 지구적 활동이 조직되는 전략적 장소로 확대시킨다. 이 글은글로벌 NGO와 글로벌 에너지 기업의 사무실 분포를 연구하기 위하여 첨단 제조업체와 금융서비스 회사의 분포와 집중을 연구하는데 공통적으로 사용되는 방법을 적용한다. 그 다음 글로벌 및 세계 도시 연구 네트워크(Global and World Cities Research Network) 자료를 이용하여, 글로벌 NGO와 글로벌 에너지 기업 사무실의 분포와 첨단 제조업체와 금융서비스 회사의 분포를 비교한다. 그것을 통하여 세 가지 네트워크에서, 두 가지 네트워크의 결합에서 그리고 단지 한 가지 네트워크에서 어떤 도시가 전략도시인지를 찾아 내고자 한다. 이러한 네트워크의 수렴과 분화를 보는 것은 네트워크 구조나 네트워크 기능에 연구를 제한시키는 것이 아니라 여러 부문에서 글로벌성(globality) 측정을 가능케 하여 네트워크 기능의 근저에서 작동하는 네트워크 논리에 대한 연구의 길을 열어 준다.

Keywords:

• cities
• globalization
• global cities
• networks

Acknowledgement

Special thanks are due to the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy for Hastert Scholarships that funded the work of Graham Smith and Ben Gibson.

Notes

While this article does not directly explore the connection, future research could measure the relationship between the presence of these global actors and the transnational activities of municipalities.

For the complete lists of 2000, 2004 and 2008, see http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/gawcworlds.html.

Peter Hall's work The World Cities (1966) differs from Friedmann's and later research on world cities, since it conceptualizes world cities as national centers through which international influences find their way towards national interests (Lai, 2009, p. 999; Orum and Chen, 2003, p. 55).

Manuel Castells and Saskia Sassen distinguish themselves from this approach by using the ‘global city’ concept rather than Friedmann's world city concept. This is because they link the global city to our globalizing society and thus to a specific historical phase. The world city concept, to the contrary, can be applied to every important city throughout human history (Castells, 2002, p. 554; Sassen, 2000, p. 150, 2007, p. 24). In Sassen's words (2007, p. 20), global cities are ‘subnational places in which multiple global circuits intersect and thereby position these cities in several structured cross-border geographies’. While Castells's interest lies in networked phenomena (of which cities can be part), Sassen's focus is more on particular cities and their role in networks (Lai, 2009, p. 1003).[0] Not all scholars point to the distinction between Friedmann's work and that of Castells and Sassen (Orum and Chen, 2003, pp. 27–59; Presas, 2004, pp. 20–25). Still, it is a significant variation, as it indicates different approaches towards globalization processes. As said, Friedmann's work must be situated in the tradition of world systems theory, which approaches current developments as part of the lifecycle of the global capitalist economy. Castells's and Sassen's work stems from globalization theory, which stresses the difference in pace and scale between contemporary processes and past developments towards more internationalization.

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