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.

via World Cities in a World-System – Cambridge University Press.

Which are the world’s most connected cities in terms of financial and business services – accountancy, advertising, banking and finance, insurance, law and management consultancy? New ESRC-funded research by Professor Peter Taylor of Loughborough University puts London and New York well ahead of the pack. While this is no great surprise – though it has never been measured before – the research finds plenty of other surprises.

For example, Tokyo is usually bracketed with New York and London as the world’s three ‘global cities’. But according to Professor Taylor’s analysis – which uses a specially produced and unique data set of the office networks of 100 global business service firms to measure the connections between 316 cities across the world and estimate the relative ‘connectivity’ of each city – Tokyo ranks below Hong Kong and Paris. (See the attached top ten ranking.) Hong Kong ranking third reflects the current influence of the emerging Chinese market on global provision of business services.

The sheer amount of connectivity across cities is quite remarkable: there are 123 cities that have levels of connectivity at least one fifth of London’s score. (See the attached ‘map’ of the global cities archipelago.)These are from all around the world, including Lagos and Nairobi in Africa, Lima and Bogota in Latin America and Karachi and Calcutta in South Asia. But overall, these well-connected cities are concentrated in North America, Western Europe and Pacific Asia.

Globalization is not a monolith: the pattern of financial and business services across the world varies by sector creating six different globalizations:

A law/banking pattern articulated through Frankfurt and Munich as a pan-European process.

A banking pattern focusing on Pacific Asia and articulated through Tokyo.

An advertising pattern articulated through New York and covering national markets across the world.

An American law pattern articulated through New York and Washington.

An accountancy pattern with a ‘western bias’ across the world articulated through London.

A management consultancy pattern concentrated in the United States and articulated through Chicago.

Other cities have different roles as gateways to regional and national markets outside the specific sectors of financial and business services:

The major gateway cities are Hong Kong for China, Singapore for South East Asia, Miami for the Caribbean and Latin America, Mumbai for India, Toronto for Canada, Sydney for Australia, Sao Paulo for Brazil and South America, and Mexico City for Mexico.

There are new developing gateway cities to emerging markets, notably Moscow for Russia and Beijing for China.

How cities connect to one another in terms of financial and business linkages goes to the heart of globalization. But until now, we have not had the data to begin to understand these linkages. The irony of the world city network is that, with the exception of New York and Miami, American cities are much more localised in their connections than cities in Western Europe and Pacific Asia. Their excessive US-orientation relates to the size of the home market, which means that a US-based global service firm’s growth strategy need not encompass large-scale globalization.

This research – the first global urban analysis – shows an interconnected business world organised through cities with hierarchical, regional and sectoral variations. Professor Taylor’s work constitutes an invitation to look at our world in a new and different way. Here we use cities as our lenses to see the world as a globally connected network. This contrasts with the usual way of viewing the world ‘internationally’, highlighting countries and their boundaries. With globalization, cities need to be taken more seriously.

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The research project ‘World City Network Formation in a Space of Flows’ by Professor Peter Taylor was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Peter Taylor is Co-Director of the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Study Group and Network centred at the Department of Geography, Loughborough University – www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/

The ESRC is the UK’s largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It has a track record of providing high-quality, relevant research to business, the public sector and government. The ESRC invests more than £46 million every year in social science research. At any time, its range of funding schemes may be supporting 2,000 researchers within academic institutions and research policy institutes. It also funds post graduate training within the social sciences, thereby nurturing the researchers of tomorrow. The ESRC website address is http://www.esrc.ac.uk.

The 100 financial and business service firms featured in the analysis have offices in at least 15 different cities including representation in all of the United States, Western Europe and Pacific Asia. The 100 consist of 18 in accountancy, 15 in advertising, 23 in banking and finance, 11 in insurance, 16 in law and 17 in management consultancy.

The top ten most globally connected cities:

City / Score

LONDON – 1.00

NEW YORK – 0.98

HONG KONG – 0.71

PARIS – 0.70

TOKYO – 0.69

SINGAPORE – 0.65

CHICAGO – 0.62

MILAN – 0.60

LOS ANGELES – 0.60

TORONTO – 0.59

Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany is sponsoring this interesting research on Energy- and climate-efficient structures in urban growth centres.

A prominent example for global changes that no longer affect individual countries or regions alone but affect the whole of humanity is the trend towards urbanisation and the spread of “megacities”, especially in developing and newly industrialising countries.

In 1975 only 38 % of the world’s population lived in cities. In 2008, more than 50 % of the world’s population is already living in cities, and this will increase to two thirds by 2030. These shifts and the increasing population density are unprecedented and are taking place at a pace (the present cities of the world grow by 60 Million per year) that is putting to test the strategic and innovative competence of politics, the economy and civil society.

This trend culminates in so-called megacities with more than 10 million inhabitants. From only five in 1975, their number is expected to grow to 26 in 2015 with 22 of these in emerging economies. In addition, there are numerous other large cities and those with over a million inhabitants that are moving towards the 10 million mark.

Furthermore, there are mega-urban regions; this means large regions, which consist of interconnected, increasingly agglomerated cities and urban growth centres. These “megacities of tomorrow” are of special interest to politics, as there is still an opportunity to precautionary action and targeted urban development.

Steering urbanisation is a central challenge in the pursuit of the goal of global sustainable development. The formation of megacities and mega-urban regions are local processes with enormous global effects in all three dimensions of sustainability. They are closely interconnected with other global changes, i.e. land consumption, energy consumption, and the emission of greenhouse gases.

Globally effective potential of energy efficiency and climate protection presents itself especially in fast growing urban growth centres, especially in developing and newly industrialising countries.

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s funding priority on the sustainable development of fast growing megacities is focussing on “energy- and climate-efficient structures in urban growth centres”. It is a global focussed component of the German Federal Government’s “High-Tech-Strategy for Climate Protection”.

The most important characteristic of this approach is its link to the concept of sustainable development. This approach is different from others insofar as the project themes are not orientated to individual issues. They are rather directed towards concrete areas of need and solution-orientated.

Ecological, economical and social aspects of the development of energy- and climate-efficient structures in urban growth centres are to be considered in a closed and long-term concept.

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