The New Challenges of Global Cities

The concept of “global cities” was popularised during the 1990’s to account for the strategic role of the world’s main urban centres in articulating the effervescent neoliberal globalisation of capitalism. In the “roaring nineties”, as Joseph Stiglitz characterised the decade of apparent free-market buoyancy and optimism, a few cities emerged as the key spatial units that territorialised global processes. These cities acquired capabilities for global operation, coordination and control of the flows of capital and of a transnationalised workforce. 

More than two decades down the line, the transnational space anchored in global cities has changed substantially. The urban populace has since increased by more than 25% and now encompasses the majority of the world’s population; a global crisis has swept away the mirage of continuous finance-led economic expansion and sparked a popular reaction and suspicion towards the promises of globalisation; whilst the prospects of widespread ecological catastrophe have become more real. 

This scenario invites a new interrogation of the notion of global cities, particularly from the perspective of its associated modes of urban governance and regulation. The urban entrepreneurialism that has crafted “city brands” and driven inter-urban competition, attracting financial and real-estate rent-seeking activities as well as the unproblematised “talents” of the global “creative classes”, has also sparked a process of planetary gentrification and further disembedded cities from their surrounding environments. 

Transformations in the “glocal” conditions embodied in global cities pose new challenges for city dwellers and public authorities. The scalar restructurings of the global governance system suggest a repositioning of cities at different levels. The claim to the “right to the city” underscores, in turn, the contested production and appropriation of urban space itself. In the interstices of these processes, new models of development in and beyond cultural and digitalisation paradigms, require careful consideration. 

The dialogue between Ada Colau, Josep Ramoneda and Teresa Caldeira “Global cities and Spatial Segregation: Resistances, Alternatives”  will take place on the 27^th September.