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I just read a piece by U of Chicago Sociologist Saskia Sassen (The Global City: Introducing a Concept - The Brown Journal of World Affairs: Vol 11 Issue 2, 2005). She's conceptualizing global cities, as opposed to world cities, as places where the practices and processes of globalization are tied to space and place. This is great for me, for whom bridges between the more local urban issues that concern me and global neoliberal forces I oppose are a welcome area for better understanding.
"The emphasis on the transnational and hypermobile character of capital has contributed to a sense of powerlessness among local actors...But an analysis that emphasizes place suggestst that the new global grid of strategic sites is a terrain for politics and engagement."
She suggests a research agenda informed by issues of local inequalities, urban space becoming "de-nationalized" and transforming into part of extra-state economic networks, and awareness of groups like immigrants and service workers who are huge, and often overlooked, parts of the system that enables globalization.
"The emphasis on the transnational and hypermobile character of capital has contributed to a sense of powerlessness among local actors...But an analysis that emphasizes place suggestst that the new global grid of strategic sites is a terrain for politics and engagement."
She suggests a research agenda informed by issues of local inequalities, urban space becoming "de-nationalized" and transforming into part of extra-state economic networks, and awareness of groups like immigrants and service workers who are huge, and often overlooked, parts of the system that enables globalization.
