We explain what a global city is, its typical features and the challenges it faces. In addition, we explain what its characteristics and classification are.
What is a global city?
Cities with significant competitive advantages and that are global, alpha or world cities are called serve as the axis of a globalized economic systemThey are cities forged by the double effect of constantly growing urbanization and the pressures inherent to the economic and social process of globalization.
Global cities They are generally cities of international importance and renown.They occupy a large urban platform (and therefore a huge population) and play an active role in the economic, social and technological flow in their region, or even on the planet.
These types of cities are contemporary equivalents to the city-states of antiquityIn fact, many of them have political and administrative autonomy, or even their own Constitution that determines their laws.
In short, these are cities. relevant to world orderthat is, model cities of contemporary global capitalism.
See also: Sustainable city
Origin of the global city concept
The concept of “global city” It was coined by sociologist Saskia Sassen in his book The global city (1991).
In it refers to London, Tokyo, Paris and New Yorkas opposed to the term “megacities”.
However, it is the Department of Geography at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom that is the main disseminator of the term, which Not to be confused with the “Global Village”.
Typical features of a global city
The typical features of a global city are:
- They occupy large territorial extensions that are densely populated (conurbation).
- They are important for tourism and are often the venue for renowned international events (such as the World Cup or the Olympics).
- They are connected by an airport to the world’s main air trade routes and have complex internal land mass transportation systems.
- They have an advanced telecommunications infrastructure, as well as a vast, complex and unique cultural environment, which gives them their own personality.
- They actively participate in the global economic flow and constitute financial hubs in their respective regions.
- They have positive immigration rates (inside and outside the country) and tend to host citizens from very different cultures and backgrounds.
Challenges facing global cities
The main challenges of global cities have to do with Reconciliation between local and global pressuresThey pit the cosmopolitan, fast-paced and delocalized world of global telecommunications and finance against the more domestic, traditional and indigenous world of the local.
The globalization produces a double effect on the communities exposed to itOn the one hand, it promotes a capitalist cosmopolitanism based on consumption and multilateral business models. But it also motivates a return to the values of nationalism, ethnicism, xenophobia and fascism.
On the other hand, after the attacks in Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States, Paranoia has been unleashed over the possible omnipresence of terroristsThis places global cities under constant international threat and, therefore, under constant surveillance and supervision.
Why are global cities important?
Global cities are those that best delve into the panorama of globalizationThey are integrated into the global dynamics of economic exchange, cultural and demographic flow and new technologies.
In this sense, They are the urban spearhead of the new millennium: the most complex innovation processes, the scientific-technological summits, take place there. They are the ones that invest the most in university research and that concentrate the most transnational capital.
Ranking of global cities
There are various studies on the subject, each with its own scale. For example, the study “Foreign Policy” (2008)carried out by the magazine of the same name, evaluated the main cities of the world based on five specific areas:
- Business activity
- Human capital
- Exchange of information
- Cultural activity
- Political compromise.
With this data prepared a ranking of the 65 cities that could be considered global. In 2010 this study was updated and named “The Global City Index”.
The GaWC study (1999) from Loughborough Universitymuch better known, used its own methodology that defined the criteria for considering a city as world-class. Its results were classified into three types of cities:
- Alpha. 12 to 10 points.
- Beta. 9 to 7 points.
- Gamma. 6 to 4 points.
Besides, He made a list of potential world cities (3 points)cities with medium potential for this (2 points) and cities with low potential (1 point).
This latest study It was repeated in 2004at the same institution, with similar results, and again in 2008, making their results even more specific by dividing each category (alpha, beta, gamma) into three subgroups: Alpha++, Alpha+ and Alpha (and so on). This study was done again in 2010 and in 2012.
Beta cities
Beta cities, according to the GaWC study, are those that They have not yet accumulated the critical mass to emerge as axes of influence regional or international in the midst of the globalized panorama. However, they are not negligible in an evaluation of the same.
This means that are in transition towards globalizationbut these are highly industrialized cities, with a large population and a significant state or national presence.
Gamma Cities
Gamma cities are still far from being global cities. They are still anchored in economic processesfinancial and sociocultural aspects of the 20th century or the beginning of modernity.
In general They are capitals of the so-called Third WorldAlthough they are important urban centres, they are not really key pieces of the global economy, nor do they participate much in major international events, nor do they have a notable cultural influence on the region.
Post-industrial cities
Global cities are, in functional terms, post-industrial cities. In which high-level tertiary functions predominate: financial, bureaucratic, IT and technological.
In this they are distinguished from cities anchored to production (primary) or manufacturing (secondary) mechanisms, still linked to the processes of the Industrial Revolution.
In this sense, global cities respond to the technological revolution of the late 20th century.
Saskia Sassen
Born in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1949She is a Dutch sociologist, writer and professor, winner of the 2013 Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences.
Is author of The Global City (1991, reissued in 2001)a book in which he proposed his model for studying and understanding globalization from economic, social, political and cultural perspectives.
List of global cities
In his book, Sassen proposed Paris, London, New York and Tokyo as examples of global cities. However, cities such as Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Milan, Singapore, Sydney, Beijing, Dubai and Seoul are also considered to be alpha cities.