Global Cities / World Cities

As Allen J. Scott writes in Globalisation and the Rise of City-regions, “... some reconsideration of the everyday notion of citizenship is itself long overdue. An alternative definition of citizenship, one that is more fully in harmony with the unfolding new world system, would presumably assign basic political entitlements and obligations to individuals not so much as an absolute birthright, but as some function of their changing involvement and practical allegiances in given geographic contexts.”

While this sentiment makes sense to anyone (myself included) who has grappled with the visa systems of the nation states at the helm of so-called global cities, it is clear that in the decade since this article was written that, if anything, regulation of the non-citizen workforce has become increasingly strict, even polarised. The United Kingdom is an example of a nation characterised by two extremes: mobility of people on the one hand obligated by membership of the EU, and tight regulation on the other that excludes all but the most highly skilled international citizens from working in the UK. What is free movement of peoples across the EU but an extension of entitlements and obligations predicated on birth? This is a regional mobility that can hardly be viewed as global. In terms of equity, the EU allows people of all skill levels and economic means, at least theoretically, to live and work anywhere in the union. For non-EU citizens, though, such rights are only granted to those professionals at the top level of command. Thus, mobility itself is an unequal process in the context of a supposedly increasingly globalised economy. It is clear that the political agenda of nation states favours a distinctly regulationist approach over otherwise neoliberal trends when it comes to mobility of labor at a global scale.

Uneven geographies of capitalism

David Harvey argues persuasively that geographic space is not a passive victim of globalisation but an active player in capitalist processes. I was grateful for his clarification of what is meant by ‘contradictions of capitalism’: the idea that physical infrastructure (such as factories and roads) is built to save on time (through distribution channels), only for technological innovation and shifting competition to render these physical structures obsolete. Central to Harvey’s argument is the idea that the built environment is both dynamic and immobile, which he illustrates in terms of jumbo jets: supposedly dynamic, but shackled by the need for airports, runways, and profitable routes. The idea that capitalism leaves a trail of crumbling infrastructure in its wake forgets the many ways in which remnants of capitalist obsolescence have found new relevance in the postindustrial world - the Highline Park being an obvious example - but more subtle reappropriations exist too. Canals, which quickly found themselves obsolete by the expansion of railways in the UK, have been utilised in recent years for laying fibre optic cable. The connectivity we have all come to rely on in the internet age belies the persistence of the complex physical infrastructure required to maintain it. As the capitalist production of space continues increasingly unevenly, facilitated by the minimal intervention of neoliberal governments, it remains to be seen how easily the physical infrastructure of post industrialisation will be repurposed in the future.

Urban Agglomeration

Last semester, I learned that the economic rationale for the mysterious persistence of cities (agglomerations) in the communication age could be explained simply by the massive externalities created by the generation of tacit knowledge. Of course, this rationale applies to growth-generating cities such as New York or Boston, rather than cities experiencing economic decline; the idea being that tacit knowledge is gained through the proximity of people and firms (where constant innovation generates increasing returns to scale) whereas knowledge that can be replicated can also be outsourced (and thus dispersed) to regions with cheaper labor. This week’s readings demonstrate that explaining capitalist economic growth in the context of the wider political and social forces that shape cities is far messier exercise. For example, Joe Painter discusses the nascent application of regulation theory to urban theory, and attempts to define the “Mode of Regulation” of post-Fordism using examples from local government in Britain. Crudely, this involves a shift from centralised, process-driven ‘Fordist’ government to something more decentralised, outcome-driven and neo-liberal. It is easy to see why regulation theory appeals to urban theorists for supposedly taking account of political and social change, but its premise that the instabilities of capitalism are ironed out by forces that are neither conscious nor accidental and usually unintended (Modes of Regulation) surely renders the task of definition extremely difficult, and makes me wonder how this theory can be usefully applied.

Urban questions and epistemologies

When I was 15, one day in English class our teacher asked the question of an entirely female classroom, “who here would describe themselves as a feminist?” Everyone looked confused and hesitated. The teacher looked shocked. “What if I told you”, she said, “that a feminist is somebody who believes in equality between the sexes?” All hands shot up. It was the first time the concept of feminism had been succinctly explained, and ever since I’ve been deeply annoyed by women who don’t describe themselves as feminists because they either don’t understand the concept, or don’t wish to be seen as political. Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr caught my attention most recently for stating in an interview that she was not a feminist. While celebrities declaring themselves not to be feminists is irritating, I would expect better from sociologists. I was very surprised to learn that only 5 out of 26 female academics in the Chicago school interviewed by Mary Jo Deegan would agree with her assessment of the Sociology Department as highly patriarchal in outlook and practice, despite the clear evidence Deegan presents in her critique of the School’s “dark era”. If women in all professions are to move closer to equality, surely the lesson of this article is that, at the very least, they should not be complicit in their own exclusion.