World Cities in a World-System

The dominating influence of a relatively small number of cities has characterized the shift to a more global economy during the 1970s and 1980s. Eighteen original essays accordingly examine the nature, demands and relationships of world cities such as New York, Tokyo and London.

Cities such as New York, Tokyo and London are the centres of transnational corporate headquarters, of international finance, transnational institutions, and telecommunications. They are the dominant loci in the contemporary world economy, and the influence of a relatively small number of cities within world affairs has been a feature of the shift from an international to a more global economy which took place during the 1970s and 1980s. This book brings together the leading researchers in the field to write seventeen original essays which cover both the theoretical and practical issues involved. They examine the nature of world cities, and their demands as special places in need of specific urban policies; the relationship between world cities within global networks of economic flows; and the relationship between world city research and world-systems analysis and other theoretical frameworks.

Preface; Part I. Introduction: World City, Hypothesis and Context: 1. World cities in a world-system Paul L. Knox; 2. Where we stand: a decade of world city research John Friedmann; 3. World cities and territorial states: the rise and fall of their mutuality Peter J. Taylor; 4. On concentration and centrality in the global city Saskia Sassen; Part II. Cities in Systems: 5. Cities in global matrices: toward mapping the world-system's city system David A. Smith and Michael Timberlake; 6. World cities, multinational corporations, and urban hierarchy: the case of the United States Donald Lyons and Scott Salmon; 7. Transport and the world city paradigm David J. Keeling; 8. The world city hypothesis: reflections from the periphery David Salmon; 9. Global logics in the Caribbean city system: the case of Miami Ramón Grosfoguel; 10. Comparing Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles: testing some world cities hypotheses Janet Lippman Abu-Lughod; 11. 'Going global' in the semi-periphery: world cities as political projects: the case of Toronto Graham Todd; Part III. Politics and Policy in World Cities: Theory and Practice: 12. Re-presenting world cities: cultural theory/social practice Anthony D. King; 13. Theorizing the global-local connection Robert A. Beauregard; 14. The disappearance of world cities and the globalization of local politics Michael Peter Smith; 15. World cities and global communities: the municipal foreign policy movement and new roles for cities Andrew Kirby and Sallie Marston, with Kenneth Seasholes; 16. The environmental problematic in world cities Roger Keil; 17. The successful management and administration of world cities: mission impossible? Peter M. Ward; Appendix: the world city hypothesis John Friedmann; Index.

This book brings together the leading researchers writing seventeen original essays that examine the nature of world cities, and their demands as special places in need of specific urban policies; the relationship between world cities within global networks of economic flows; and the relationship between world-systems analysis and other theoretical frameworks.