Globalization, Justice and a Crowded Planet - Essay Example

Introduction World Cities have been in existence existed throughout urban history and these have been more prevalent in the Western societies. These cities have been acting as centers of politics, commerce, trade and finance, and they were having large populations and good infrastructure provision. Rome has been often cited as world first city. The term world city was replaced by the term global city in the 1990s and these cities are being identified as the place of power both economically and politically. The term global city cannot be defined in clear terms but will be drawing from the concept of world cities. The world cities has been defined as centers of power both nationally and internationally and there has been more organizations that has been related to government in these places. These world cities would be having more centers of national and international trade and they would be acting as center spots for all countries globally. The world city would have defined centers of insurance and banking sectors and would be having centers of advanced professional activity of all kinds. These world cities would be having centers of information gathering and diffusion and these places would be rated as places of conspicuous consumption. The global city or the world city would be acting as centers of innovation in which production would be helping the trade in a more direct manner and within the city region globally. Characteristics that would define a Global City. The name of the city: The city name will be identified globally without having the need to attach the name of the country to it. The popular examples can be said as London, Paris, New York, Washington, and Melbourne and so on. If all these would have country names attached to it, then it would mean the end of the global city as London, United Kingdom, Paris, France and so on. There will be participation in international events and world affairs: The examples of this type of model can be seen in Washington, Berlin, Brussels where there is more influential organizations. A fairly large population: The center metropolitan area would be having at least one million and there will be several typical million in the area. The advanced transportation system: International airport, advanced transportation system like highways, large mass transit network that has been offering like rapid transit, light rail, regional rail, and ferry and bus service and so on and these cities would be attracting a large number of expatriate communities like Moscow, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Shanghai, New York and so on. Organizations having influence over world community There have been International financial institutions, law firms, corporate headquarters, international conglomerates, and stock exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange that would be having influence over global economy. There will be high speed communication nodes like the Wi-Fi in these areas and world renowned cultural universities and museums will be in these places. There will be also cultural scene and these can be attributed to film festivals like the Berlin film festival, Toronto international film festival and so on. There will be also several media center that has reach all over the world like the BBC, CNN, Reuters, New York Times, Agence France-Presse and so on. Sachs-Jeantet, C has argued that these cities would have been the host to major international sporting events like the Olympics, football world cup and grand slam tennis events. The global cities or world cities will be having several international cities within the urban boundaries and there are many cities in North America that will be having areas designated as “Chinatown” and “Little Italy”. The global city needs The increased technological advancement has created a situation in which there is every chance that people can be working from home and that means there is diminishing need for concentration of working from global city. These arguments can be counterattacked by the theory that can state that there is increased need for global cities in these eras. The greater size and high velocity capital flows to certain areas would be giving certain areas a world city status. The extensive technical infrastructure that has been needed by financial and insurance industries would be giving a world city status. Advanced mass transportation system makes a true global city. There has been argument that states that global city has been due to the globalization process and new technologies,telecommunications,information technology and that have led to the decentralization and agglomeration of economic activities, advancement in the information technology have changed the city hierarchies. There are international trade that has been taken by neighboring countries and there has been specialized business services that included banking, insurance, finance, accountancy, legal and commercial law. The latest global city has to have an advanced professional activity of all kinds and there has been creation of latest knowledge and creativity that will be resulting the production of new services and commodities. C. Hewitt de Alcántara (2008) has argued that as global cities expand, it has been happening globally, a new generation of Global Cities has emerged and that has become more non-Western and that the global cities that has developed were in the Asian countries like Hong Kong, Singapore, Latin American areas like Mexico City, Sao Paulo. Global Cities have started emerging from African countries, and Johannesburg has emerged as the region’s dominant metropolis, followed by Cape Town, Lagos and Nairobi and these can be said as the aspiring company. The scale of global cities has been increasing and urbanization has been increasing at rapid pace. The average size of cities has been increasing and global cities have been increasing due to migration also. The growth of global cities has created new opportunities for service industry but they have been creating problems in the sense that there has been large salary range and low salary range. There has been tending towards polarization of people through financial crisis and there has been mass employment, decrease of real income, accumulation of income inequality and that has been the side effects of global city. Global city problems The global cities have been increasing at neck break speed and that has created new problems like racial and ethnic problems in global city. Keating (1997) has stated that global city like New York,London,and other global cities has seen that more people has been coming to the city and immigration has created new opportunities’ and challenges to the global cities. Jessop (1998) has argued that there has been a debate that occupation in global cities has created a social polarization and this has been approached in relation to occupational structure. The logic behind this theory is that occupational distribution among the population will be resulting in income inequality, and that can lead to social polarization. There has been a concept called global city and occupational structure of major growth industries has been creating a high stratum people coupled with low people stratum. Sassen, S. (1994) has argued that employment in global city has been separated into two classes namely a small number of high-income professional jobs and a large number of low-income jobs and there has been a case of blaming fully polarization of occupation as the main cause of these division. But there has to be a look of another inequality that has been happening in asset inequality.Assest inequality will be causing more income inequality. The assets inequality has been normally higher in real estate property such as land, buildings and homes. There has been an increasing number of people in global cities who has no land at all. There has been competitive struggle between cities to get and to retain world city status. Davis, Diane E. (2005) has argued that the global city has been creating considerable social costs and the economic restructuring has been accompanied by a growing social polarization or dualisation in the occupational and income structure that has been paralleled by high levels of spatial and ethnic segregation. Sao Paulo can be said as contradiction between the acknowledgements that it has been getting due to global city and the big price in the form of human price that most of its inhabitants must endure to survive. The process of global cities and globalization has changed the economic and social fabric, environment, of large global cities, but has remodeled the spatial structure as well. The outcomes of this process will be differing in very global cities. There have been cases of global cities facing problems like urban life get stifled by the very high rate of economic growth and that can be followed by desertion by companies when financial crunch occurs leading to high unemployment in global cities. The alternative to this can be as follows J. Friedmann and G. Wolff (2002) has argued that global cities have been seeing the changes in economic globalization and the globalization of capital and labor has been affecting urban employment. Global cities will be seeing economic growth by the generative economic role the cities can attract by getting global networks of production and consumption. Global cities are to be seen as mechanisms through which global economic integration will be taking place and greater prosperity would be achieved. The counter argument to this would be that urban exclusion that has been happening in global city has resulted in paradigm of fragmentation, isolation, poverty pockets, and radical otherness in global cities. There has been a case of urban violence in global cities like Sao Paulo where it has been caused by social, economic and cultural exclusion. O’Connor, K., (2005) has argued that the collision of cultures has been seen as a source of creation, conflict and so on. The global cities have to be used as a powerful tool for promoting social change. There has been large number of people coming from different cultures that has created tensions in the global cities due to collision of values and perceptions. The main challenge for these global cities will be to deal with these tensions. Sachs-Jeantet, C., (2005) has argued that the other problem that global cities will be facing is the fact that wealth is visible and that can be understood by the life style of the high paid professionals and that has created a pressure on living costs of global cities. The global cities have been the command centers for the world economy, and cities that have been used as manufacturing centers would suffer. Workers who had received the higher education would be able to climb the financial ladder in global cities but the workers having low or medium skills will be facing inequalities. Conclusion The films of Hollywood, the semiconductors of Silicon Valley, the banking and financial services of New York and London, and the fashions of Paris all represent the flexible production networks of global cities and that has the power to change the way world is seeing global cities. Global cities has come to function increasingly as the trend setter of global economy and there has been a dynamic local networks of economic relationships along with globalized market and this can be said as an example like Guadalajara, Mexico. The global cities have seen cultural and demographic heterogeneity that has been happening primarily by large scale to global city. Migration has been oriented to big global cities that will be taking the development of nearby areas and in the process would be creating a situation of culturally diverse urban agglomerations. Two extreme examples of such multi-clustered agglomerations can be Shanghai and the Pearl River Delta, and these city regions that can be termed as global and the population estimate would be more than thirty million inhabitants. The global city development has seen the growth of areas like outer cities and edge cities and there has been blurring of boundaries between countries due to new information age and globalization. Global cities has also seen problems of housing, immigrant problems, increased violence, increased crime rate and increased gap between the people economically.( C. Hewitt de Alcántara (1998)) Reference C. Hewitt de Alcántara (2008) “Uses and abuses of the concept of governance,” International Social Science Journal, 155, 105-113. Davis, Diane E. (2005) “Cities in a Global Context: A Brief Intellectual History,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29, 1:92-109 J. Friedmann and G. Wolff (2002) "World city formation: an agenda for research and action," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 6, 309 - 344. Jessop (1998) “The rise of governance and the risk of failure: the case of economic development,” International Social Science Journal, 155, 29-44. Keating (1997) “The invention of regions: political restructuring and territorial government in Western Europe,” Environment and Planning C, 15, 383-398. Sassen, S. (1994). "The urban complex in a world economy." International Social Science Journal, 139, pp. 43-62. Sachs-Jeantet, C. "Managing Social Transformations in Cities" http://www.unesco.org/most/sachsen.htm#GlobalCity accessed August 2009. O’Connor, K., (2005) ‘International Students and Global Cities’, GaWC (Globalisation and World Cities) Research Bulletin 161, Loughborough University, U.K. website http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/ accessed August 2009. Sachs-Jeantet, C., (2005) ‘Managing Social Transformations in Cities’, UNESCO website http://www.unesco.org/most/sachsen.htm#GlobalCity accessed August 2009 Read More