Study Notes on Urbanization and World City Hypothesis

LECTURE 31 – THE WORLD OF THE CITY

Introduction

• Urbanization and new spatial configurations.

• Discussion on different approaches to the study of cities under conditions of contemporary globalization:

  • Development of the 'world city hypothesis'.

  • Inventory of world cities according to GaWC (Globalization and World Cities Research Network).

  • Concept of planetary urbanization in the 21st century.

WORLD DISTRIBUTION OF CITIES

Table I: Number of Cities Worldwide by Size Categories (1950-2015)

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• Data on the number of cities across various population ranges from 1950 to 2015:
  

  Population Range	1950	1970	1990	2015	% Change 1950-1970	% Change 1970-1990	% Change 1990-2015
  >10 million	2	3	10	29	50.0%	233.3%	190%
  5-10 million	5	15	21	44	200.0%	40.0%	109.5%
  1-5 million	71	126	239	428	77.5%	89.7%	79.1%
  300,000 to 1 million	229	413	706	1191	80.3%	70.9%	68.7%
  Total	307	557	976	1692
  Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects dataset, 2017.
  Table II: Total World Population Living in Urban Areas by Size Categories (1955-2015)

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  • Data detailing total populations residing in urban areas by size categories:
    

    Population Range	1950	1970	1990	2015	% Change 1950-1970	% Change 1970-1990	% Change 1990-2015
    >10 million	24	55	153	471	131.9%	178.8%	208.7%
    5-10 million	32	106	157	307	230.0%	48.2%	95.4%
    1-5 million	129	245	459	847	90.0%	87.7%	84.4%
    300,000 to 1 million	115	216	359	633	87.2%	66.6%	76.0%
    <300,000	447	729	1156	1699	63.2%	58.6%	46.9%
    Total Urban Population	746	1350	2285	3957
    Urban as a percentage of the world population: 29.6% (1950), 36.6% (1970), 42.9% (1990), 54.0% (2015).
    Notably, 2006-07 marked a demographic tipping point.
    Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects dataset, 2017.
    Source: Scott (2019), "Environment and Planning A".
    NEW SPATIAL CONFIGURATIONS (1)

    • Post-Fordism and globalization lead to the emergence of new spatial configurations:

      • The importance of the 'local' has been emphasized more than ever.

    • Identification of 'twin' geographical forces affecting these changes:

      • Local/Regional Processes:

      • Economic activities cluster to leverage agglomeration economies, as noted by Marshall.

      • Key clusters have become localized industrial production complexes, referred to as New Industrial Spaces.

      • Global Processes:

      • Operation of multinational corporations (MNCs), financial flows, trade flows, and the role of new global institutions.

    NEW SPATIAL CONFIGURATIONS (2)

    • Concept of 'glocalization' involves a dialectical movement between globalization and localization.

    • Discussion on local-global scalar dynamics as emerging configurations that challenge the traditional nation-state framework.

    • New Industrial Spaces are not isolated entities but form a mosaic (archipelago) of substantial world cities that serve as key nodes in the new global economy's structural networks.

    WORLD CITY HYPOTHESIS (1)

    • The hypothesis was initially conceptualized by Sir Peter Hall in 1966:

      • Investigates why certain urban centers dominate a disproportionately large segment of the world economy.

      • Positions cities as crucial centers for trade, political power, and knowledge generation and dissemination.

      • Proposes “essential ingredients” to form a methodological framework for the study of world cities.

    WORLD CITY HYPOTHESIS (2)

    • Contributions by Friedmann and Wolff (1982; 1986):

      • Define world cities based on their “degree of enmeshment” in global economic activities, particularly concerning their linkage to the global economy.

      • Introduce important notions including extensity, intensity, and velocity of integration into the global economy.

      • Focus on MNCs as key agents of change, leading to the emergence of world cities as command and control centers, primarily through the location of headquarters.

      • Present the first ranking of world cities, based on a small sample of 30 urban centers.

    WORLD CITY HYPOTHESIS (3)

    • GaWC (Globalization and World Cities Research Network) was established in the 1990s at Loughborough University, UK.

    • GaWC's approach involves:

      • Constructing a detailed inventory of world cities employing unprecedented methods to collect and analyze data, as well as measure the extent of global networks connecting various cities.

    WORLD CITIES ACCORDING TO GaWC (1)

    • Under the assumption that in post-Fordism, “innovations in corporate services and finance are integral to the restructuring of the world economy.”

    • Defines key economic activities as:

      • Dispersion of production versus concentration of advanced producer services needed for managing this distribution.

    WORLD CITIES ACCORDING TO GaWC (2)

    • Cities are assessed and ranked based on their overall “world-cityness”, which reflects their global connectivity through different corporate services.

    • Evaluations of each city's global service capacity focus on four key sectors:

      1. Accountancy services

      2. Advertising agencies

      3. Banking/financial services

      4. Legal services

    WORLD CITIES ACCORDING TO GaWC (3)

    • Data collection methods include trade directories, magazines, newspapers, and web-based sources.

    • Each city receives a rank based on the number of corporate service providers it hosts across the four identified sectors:

      • Prime or alpha: 5+ firms = 3 points

      • Major or beta: 3-4 firms = 2 points

      • Minor or gamma: 1-2 firms = 1 point

    WORLD CITIES ACCORDING TO GaWC (4) - ORIGINAL RANKING

    Table: GaWC Inventory of World Cities (World City Rankings by Classification)

    • Cities are categorized by their world-cityness values ranging from 1 to 12:

      • Alpha World Cities:

      • 12: London, Paris, New York, Tokyo.

      • 10: Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Milan, Singapore.

      • Beta World Cities:

      • 9: San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto, Zurich.

      • 8: Brussels, Madrid, Mexico City, Sao Paulo.

      • 7: Moscow, Seoul.

      • Gamma World Cities:

      • 6: Amsterdam, Boston, Caracas, Dallas, Dusseldorf, Geneva, Houston, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Melbourne, Osaka, Prague, Santiago, Taipei, Washington.

      • 5: Bangkok, Beijing, Rome, Stockholm, Warsaw.

      • 4: Atlanta, Barcelona, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Budapest, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Miami, Minneapolis, Montreal, Munich, Shanghai.

      • Evidence of World City Formation:

      • Relatively strong evidence: 3 – Athens, Auckland, Dublin, Helsinki, Luxembourg, Lyon, Mumbai, New Delhi, Philadelphia, Rio de Janeiro, Tel Aviv, Vienna.

      • Some evidence: 2 – Abu Dhabi, Almaty, Birmingham, Bogota, Bratislava, Brisbane, Bucharest, Cairo, Cleveland, Cologne, Detroit, Dubai, Ho Chi Minh City, Kiev, Lima, Lisbon, Manchester, Montevideo, Oslo, Rotterdam, Riyadh, Seattle, Stuttgart, The Hague, Vancouver.

      • Minimal evidence: 1 – Various cities listed, including Adelaide, Antwerp, Arhus, Baltimore, Bangalore, Bologna, etc.

    • Values of world-cityness were produced by scoring systems: 3 for prime center status, 2 for major center status, and 1 for minor center status.

    • Rationale for class divisions noted in the accompanying text.

    • Source: Beaverstock et al. (1999).

    WORLD CITIES ACCORDING TO GaWC (6) - CIRCULAR NETWORKS

    • A visualization of global interconnectedness and urban networks.

    • Cities' relationships indicate a circular networking system, including cities from various continents:

      • E.g., Mumbai (India), Cape Town (South Africa), New York (USA), Tokyo (Japan), etc.

    • Source: Henneman (2013).

    GaWC PAN-REGIONS: REGIONAL WORLD CITIES

    • Map showing classifications of world cities across regional spheres of influence:

      • Regional World Cities are denoted for key geographical locations.

      • Major and minor regional centers are identified, increasing the awareness of local-global linkages.

    • Source: Taylor et al. (2002).

    WORLD CITY NETWORK: CHANGES IN RANKS AMONG TOP 20 CITIES

    Table: Changing Ranks of Cities from 2000 to 2024

    • Demonstrates fluctuation in the top 20 cities' rankings from the years 2000 to 2024 based on global network connectivity:

      Year	Rank	City	Classification	GNC Rank
      2000	1	London	Alpha ++	100.00
      	2	New York	Alpha +	97.64
      	3	Hong Kong	Alpha +	70.71
      	4	Beijing		69.92
      	5	Singapore		69.08
      2013	1	London		100.00
      	2	New York		92.66
      	3	Hong Kong		78.31
      	4	Paris		71.62
      	5	Singapore		65.62
      2024	1	London		100.00
      	2	New York		92.66
      	3	Hong Kong		78.31
      	4	Paris		71.62
      	5	Singapore		65.62

    • Source: Taylor (2018) and GaWC (2024).

    PLANETARY URBANIZATION

    • Active discussion in the social sciences regarding planetary urbanization.

    • Over the last 30 years, there have been profound socio-spatial transformations:

      • Emergence of new scales of urbanization, such as mega-scaled urban areas (e.g., BosWash, Blue Banana, Pearl River Delta).

      • Regionalization of urban processes reflects emerging heartlands.

      • Transformations concerning hinterlands and wilderness.

    • The urban condition is presented as a worldwide phenomenon where local and global political-economic relations become intertwined.