INTR13/71/-310
R. James Ferguson © 2007
Week 10:
Cities in the World System:
Singapore, Shanghai, Berlin, Dar es Salaam and Beyond
Topics: 1. City-States, Virtual City-States, Capitals and Megacities
2. Sister-Cities and Inter-City Organisations
3. Cities and Foreign Policy
4. Population Growth, Megacities and The Sustainable City Project
5. Cities in War and 'Peace': The Strategic Perspective
6. World Cities in the World System
7. Bibliography, Resources and Further Reading
1. City-States, Virtual City-States, Capitals and Megacities
Cities and urban centres are one of the key elements in the development of most
civilisations. They are key centres of invention, as well as foci of economic and
political power (Masterton 2002). Today, cities are the focus of many crucial
interactions: economic growth, industrial development, and global service centres.
The crucial interaction of urban and rural areas (Taylor et al. 2001; Ginsburg et al.
1991), population growth and urbanisation, ecological impact areas, and strategic
centres are located in or on the fringe of cities. They are also increasingly key actors
in globalisation flows and transnational interactions. Yet cities as a category often
receive extremely limited discussion in international relations, globalisation and
strategic studies. We will focus on some of these important roles of the city as an
international actor and node of interactions in the 20th-21st centuries. In the current
period, with some decline in the centrality of the sovereign state, cities form one
important element in a group of emerging supranational, global and subnational units which have an important role to play in international affairs (Sassen
1991). Cities thus often form the locus for economic, political and cultural groups that
work across national boundaries (for useful overviews of these issues, see Rosenau
1997; Ohmae 1993). They are part of global flows that reinforce the relative power of
some geographical locations (cities and nations) that also form part of uneven
globalisation (Taylor et al. 2001). They are also interfaces where the global and the
local meet, with a strong tendency for the concerns of local citizens to flow into the
wider relations of the city (see Cremer et al 2001).
In the past cities were also the centres of government and were sometimes sovereign
states: these were the traditional city-states of ancient Greece, Phoenicia, and
Mesopotamia. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the city-states of Italy in the
Netherlands were also extremely important. The basic conception of the city-state is
one major city controlling a relatively small hinterland of villages and small towns as
its agricultural resource base. All political, economic and intellectual life was thus
concentrated into a small and intense urban zone. City-states have thus been viewed as
extremely creative hubs of civilisational development. The creation of democracy,
written constitutional law, sophisticated trade and financial patterns, the
1
development of Renaissance art and science have all in part been developed by the
social conditions in city-states such as Athens, Corinth, Venice and Florence. In the
long-run, most of these city-states, even when they built their own alliances or
temporary empires, were unable to secure enough military power to resist the armies
of extended territorial nation-states and empires, but for some hundreds of years they
were extremely successful political structures.
In the early modern period, however, as empires were expanded and intercontinental
patters of trade developed, major cities within Europe began to develop as the key
centres of administrative and economic power. These forces were at first
channelled through major trading cities, e.g. Venice, Amsterdam, London, and in
part through emerging mercantilist European empires, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch,
French, British (Braudel 1986). In general this may be the origin of the first 'world
cities' which had a unique place in the global distribution of ideas, wealth and power.
According to Fernand Braudel, these early world cities tended to rise and fall in
relative succession, each one coming to relative dominance within the early capitalist
world system (Braudel 1986). Today, however, some 9-20 cities jostle each other for
pre-eminence as hubs of the current international order (Taylor 2001; see further
below). Today, moreover, very few cities have the formal structure of city-states, e.g.
Singapore, Macau (see Porter 1996), and the Vatican come close to his structure.
However, from the late 20th century a wide range of trends have begun to heighten
the importance of cities, and to give them back considerable decision making powers
and greater ability to act internationally. We thus speak of 'virtual city-states', i.e.
cities which are part of a larger nation but in fact have a strong degree of autonomy
and high levels of influence internationally.
These trends can be summarised:  The existence of a number of cities, small countries, or small regional areas
with full or partial sovereignty or autonomy, e.g. Macau, Singapore, Hong
Kong SAR, Kuwait, Catalonia, Quebec, all approximate this condition.
Hong Kong: A 'Virtual City-State' within PRC, a World City,
and a semi-autonomous administrative region
2
(Photo: R. James Ferguson © 1997)
 The existence of major trading-port cities, or cities with such central
economic and financial roles that they are virtual international powers in an
individual sense. Cities such as New York, London, Tokyo (for unique
features of Tokyo, see Hill & Kim 2000), Shanghai (see Wu 2000), Paris,
Frankfurt and Jakarta are important hubs of economic networks that make
them much more than national urban centres (Shin & Timberlake 2000;
Taylor et al 2001). Likewise, cities located in special economic zones in China
(mainly along the coast) have had a major economic role in Chinese
development, based upon greater economic autonomy and different
administrative procedures for these regions (see Park 1997).
 The emergence of a number of megacities whose populations often exceed
those of small states. These megacities are great power-houses of social and
economic activity, but also pose major problems for management, standards
of living, and for the environment (Hardoy et al. 1993). These megacities are
also a major source of population growth. Established megacities include
New York, Shanghai, Mexico City, Mumbai, New Delhi, Sao Paulo, Manila,
Bogota and Cairo. On average, urban growth is 1.5 to 2.5 times greater than
overall population increase in these cities, often due to internal migration in
these centres (Friedmann 1995, p323). Definitions of the megacity remain
arbitrary, but usually only cities with a population of over 5 or 10 million are
significant. A short listing of such cities as of 2000 includes (Hinrichsen et al
2001): City--2000
Population in millions
Tokyo
Mexico City
Bombay
Sao Paulo
Shanghai
New York
Lagos
Los Angeles
Calcutta
Buenos Aires
Dhaka
Karachi
Delhi
Jakarta
Osaka
Metro Manila
Beijing
Rio de Janeiro
Cairo
26.4
18.1
18.1
17.8
17.0
16.6
13.4
13.1
12.9
12.6
12.3
11.8
11.7
11.0
11.0
10.9
10.8
10.6
10.6
 Megalopolises are also a possible trend in the 21st century: these are cases
where several adjacent cities grow and merge, thereby creating a huge,
extended urban environment. Likely prospects include the Boston to
3
Washington strip, a South California strip centring on Los Angeles, the
existing Tokyo-Osaka-Kyoto complex, a London-Midland cities complex, the
Netherlands-central Belgium area, and extended corridors of urban
development around Jakarta.
 Around the world, a large number of cities have endured rapid but not
always sustainable growth, but have been unable to provide the resources
and infrastructure to support their urban populations, leading to major health,
developmental and environmental problems (Masterton 2002). This is led to a
major rethinking of city development, the Sustainable City Programme, run
by the UNEP, as well as being a major component of UN Habitat
Conferences (see further below). One of the other issues is that new urban
habitations will need to build in future, often near existing major cities, to
support continued growth: Half the world's people still live in regions classified as rural, but it is likely that
cities will continue to expand until approximately 85 percent of the world's
population live in cities. Countries such as Australia, Chile, and Denmark are
already there. Indeed, when the Board on Sustainable Development of the
U.S. National Academy of Sciences first identified priorities for a sustainability
transition 8 years ago, it projected that the equivalent of nearly 1,000 great
cities--an average of about 20 per year--would need to be built in and around
existing cities to accommodate 4 billion new urban residents. Most of this
expansion is expected to be in developing countries. That forecast is surely
on track today. (Kates 2006)
 The existence of cities with great symbolic importance, either because they
are the administrative capitals of major powers, or because of their unique
histories. Cities such as Berlin, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rome, Beijing,
Washington D.C., Patna and Ujjain in India, Yogyakarta, Mecca, Jerusalem,
Damascus, and Kyoto fulfil some of these roles.
 Since the end of World War II, cities around the world have sought to
increase their international activities and leverage, to form sister city
linkages, and to create associations that bring together city managers to help
solve common problems. These trends have given cities a greatly
enhanced international profile, with some cities running their own
international policies (see below). Thus cities have emerged as actors and sites
of international activity: Second, this analysis suggests that a vibrant set of new actors need to be
added to international affairs, once again questioning the state-centrism that
has for so long dominated thought and action. Many of these are informal
organizations which have escaped the gaze of international relations until
recently, partly because they are not formally represented in the polity. But, as
Harvard University political scientist Pippa Norris and others have shown, the
lack of formal structure does not necessarily make them any less effective. . .
..
. . . Cities have too often been seen as the medium when they are in fact the
message: cities are not simply passive players in a global game played out
among and between national and international actors, nor are cities simply
another set of actors to be added in. Instead, they are sites that help to forge
the international. They are, simultaneously, sites of both issue and response,
influencing what happens around the world. They add a further dimension to
international relations' many critiques of politics as simply an inter-state
4
system. (Asmin & Thrift 2005)
These trends have led to the emergence of cities as a major aspect of international
relations and international political economy. These cities are often now linked in
trade, information and command networks which give them a privileged position
in the current age of globalisation. They are centres of transnational corporations, foci
for migration and labour flows, and are often multicultural centres hosting diaspora
populations with strong transnational connections, e.g. major cities near the U.S. and
Mexico borders (see for example Goldring 2002). They are also sites where citizen or
alienation are experienced in intesified forms. Hence, it is now possible to speak of a
network of World Cities that in many ways is just as important as the network of
nation-states.
2. Sister-Cities and Inter-City Organisations
One of the most active of the international activities of cities is based around sistercity alliances. This is a process whereby one city negotiates with another international
city to enter into a specific relationship (sister cities) which formally recognises a
special bond. Usually, sister cities are of similar size, share particular cultural or
economic interests, or have a historical or ethnic connection. Larger cities will often
have ties with several others around the world, e.g. Los Angeles had 16 sisters, while
Moscow had 25 by 1990 (Zelinsky 1990). Small towns will usually one have one or
two such connections. There are more than 11,000 such sister-city arrangements
globally, with some 1,200 U.S. towns and cities engaging with 1,858 communities in
125 countries (Ames 1999; Zelinsky 1990). In the United States these activities had
become so vigorous that by 1956 a special organisation, Sister Cities International,
had been set up to give advice and technical support in creating and supporting sister
city connections, as well as arrange conferences (Ames; 1999; Zelinsky 1990).
However, the most active locus of sister city arrangements was found in Europe.
These arrangements began in earnest after 1950, when 'the mayors of towns in wartorn Germany and France realised that informal, people-to-people links might be the
most effective way to prevent future conflicts and eventually to create a united Europe'
(Zelinsky 1990). France and Germany had over 3,000 twinnings for each country.
British and German twinning were also prominent in the post-World War II period
(see Brown 1998). Likewise, Hanover and Bristol from 1947 began to form a
relationship, soon followed by other cities throughout Europe, leading to the Council
of European Municipalities (CCRE): Oxford and Bonn were next in tying the knot, Reading and Dusseldorf followed suit,
and the first German-French twinning, between Montbeliard and Ludwigsburg, came
about in 1950. Surprisingly, yet in line with the original idea of informal contacts, the
phenomenon was allowed to mushroom in a more or less random fashion until 1951,
by which time Germany had well over 100 twinnings in place. That year saw the
establishment of the Council of European Municipalities (CCRE) with offices in
Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, the
Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. For the first time, an assembly of 50 European
mayors had got together to establish standards and guidelines by joint decisions, draw
up standard twinning contracts and finally put the aims of twinning down on paper.
The CCRE was hoping to promote a European spirit at grass roots level, encouraging
the idea that Europe needed to unite in order to rebuild. Above all, it recognized the
5
autonomy of - and democratic structures within - local government as the base of any
democratic state and as a means actively to rule out the possibility of another
dictatorship. Local government was to act as a mediator between people and national
government, with a view to influencing national foreign policy over time. (Weyreter
2003)
Cities around the world have particular reasons for building these networks, and
gain benefits from these sister city arrangements including:  To improve trade, business connections and investment, e.g. Portland in
the U.S. receives hundreds of millions of dollars in trade from its sister city of
Sapporo in Japan, while Coldwater in the U.S. has received extra foreign
investment through its sister city connection. Vancouver businesses have
secured a number of major deals in China through their sister city connection
with Guangzhou. (Zelinsky 1990). Likewise, Bandung in Indonesia has
developed ties with Suwon in Korea, and recently developed ties with Abu
Dhabi (in the United Arab Emirates, UAE) for these reasons (Muchtar 2001).
Cities in New Zealand have sought linkages with communities in Australia,
Japan and China, with linkages to Chinese cities mobilising face-to-face
networking: The integrated approach to sister-cities is particularly necessary in the early
phases of establishing a sister-city relationship with a Chinese city, when the
formal, protocol based input of the mayor and councillors cannot be
underestimated. Without visible and active support from the mayor and city
councillors and other leading local personalities, initiatives and activities in
China lack credibility and clout. Building a good relationship between the two
respective city mayors is, on a very practical level, seen as a signal that
administrative and bureaucratic procedures and obstacles can be overcome
smoothly, a perception equally appropriate to business ventures and the
involvement of chief executive officers. The cultural background to this is that
the Chinese tend to emphasize individual authority, integrity and linkages
more than procedures, contracts and organisations. The Chinese concept of
"face" and "giving face to somebody" is also a good reason why city officials
should be involved in sister-city activities whenever possible, especially at the
beginning. (Cremer et al 2001)
 Increase tourist and personal contacts, e.g. in the U.S. some 150,000
visitors come to sister cities each year.
 Adopt a poorer or struggling city as a humanitarian gesture (Zelinsky 1990).
 Direct technical and financial aid can flow between sister cities, e.g. Raleigh
in the U.S. helped the city of Tetouan in Morocco construct its first wastewater treatment facility, with Raleigh helping get the $25-35 million needed
from the US Agency for International Development, USAID (Superka 1992,
p194).
 Develop effective environmental or employment training schemes in a
sister city, as in the trainee placements between Hamburg and St. Petersburg
from 1992 (Wyreter 2003).
 In response to historical or ethnic connections, e.g. New England towns
linking to English towns which supplied original settlers, or Sante Fe's
connection to cities in Mexico and Spain (Zelinsky 1990).
 Less tangible educational and cross-cultural benefits by opening a window
onto a different culture (see Cremer et al 2001).
6
Beyond sister city arrangements, however, cities and mayors have been able to build
up other tools of solidarity on an international or global basis. In part this is due to
the recognition that cities share many similar problems and needs, that problems can
sometimes be solved by supporting each other, and that since cities are now the major
loci of wealth and population growth, that collective action by cities can have a global
impact. On this basis, groups such as the International City-County Management
Association (ICMA) meet regularly to discuss shared interests and problems. In
1995, for example, 125 delegates met at the ICMA conference from more than 20
different countries (Honey 1996). It was recognised that today cities really operate in a
global as well as a national context: 'Decisions that are made are interconnected
through a cumulative impact on global sustainability, on worldwide systems of
telecommunications, and on the global web of increasing economic interdependency'
(Honey 1996). More recently the ICMA has also begin researching and extending the
E-government concept whereby new IT technologies may deliver faster, more
accountable and transparent government in modernising cities, though financial and
legal restrains limit this trend (Moon 2002). Cities can thus help each other by
providing economic opportunities, and by allowing the copying of best practices
where ever they occur, e.g. recycling and environmental issues is one area where city
managers can learn from each other and make a real gains (Honey 1996). Likewise,
the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) has an affiliated group, the
Organization of Islamic Capital Cities, founded in 1980, with headquarters in Makkah
al-Mukarramah (Al-Ahsan 2004, p50).
Likewise, mayors can cooperate to launch environmental agenda. In the 2005 UN
World Environment Day Conference, held in San Francisco: The specific, time-bound goals of the Urban Environmental Accords include
developing plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2030 and
implementing policies to stop the acceleration of waste being sent to landfills and
incinerators by 2040. Shorter-term actions include expanding affordable public
transportation and accessible park space to within a half-kilometer of all city residents
by 2015. The accords also call for access to safe water for all within a decade and a
green building rating system that would apply to all new municipal buildings.
The declaration was signed by mayors from 50 cities, including Jakarta, Delhi,
Istanbul, London, Seattle, Melbourne, Kampala, Rio de Janeiro, Copenhagen, and
Islamabad. (Environment 2005)
Cities can also promote good inter-cultural and inter-racial relations, both
internationally and locally, through promoting certain skills and attitudes, e.g. within
their own staffs and operations, 'develop the skills of cultural openness, cultural
curiosity, and cultural humility' and 'embrace the cultural and ethnic diversity within
our communities' (Honey 1996). These activities can be very important when
globalisation trends begin to create fear and xenophobic reactions, or when minority
nationalistic parties use these fears to their own ends. In Queensland, for example, the
Brisbane City Council has been very keen to support multicultural events, e.g. the
Buddhist festivals which were staged as a major multicultural event on the South
Bank area (1997-2006). Likewise, Brisbane in 2002 strongly supported a major
festival of international religious festival designed to support both multiculturalism
and mutual tolerance of different religions. In Germany, sister city arrangements
7
improved relations with French and British cities, while from the 1990s onward
German and Russian cities were one avenue of German influence eastward (Weyreter
2003), and it has been suggested that new sister-city arrangements might help
reduce current social tensions in Germany: Germany is now a nation facing many internal changes and problems. Above all, it is
turning into a multicultural society where immigrants - mainly from Turkey, the Balkan
states and the Middle East, a high percentage of them Muslims - have made their new
home. Perhaps new twinning arrangements will reflect these changes. With Turkey
and the Balkans already popular holiday destinations for Germans and with
immigrants maintaining links to their countries of origin, nothing should really stand in
the way. (Weyreter 2003)
The twinning approach has created a virtual web of city networks that is a major
hub of trade, tourism, and second track diplomacy. On this basis it is viewed as part of
a 'quiet revolution' (Cremer et al 2001) in local and global governance.
3. Cities and Foreign Policy
Sister city connections can have particular implications for international relations.
In general, cities will often follow that lead of the foreign affairs policies of their own
nation, often for pragmatic reasons. Therefore, for example, U.S. cities have not
generally formed sister city relations with cities in Cuba, North Korea, or Libya. Two
earlier arrangements for sister cities with those in Iran were effectively suspended
from 1979 (Zelinsky 1990). However, at times, city twinnings can be used to create an
independent line of policy, to resist, by-pass, modify or enhance national-level
policies:  U.S. cities by 1990 had formed over 91 sister city relationships with
Nicaraguan towns and cities, thereby protesting U.S. anti-Sandinista policies
against that that country circa 1982-1990 (Zelinsky 1990). Help for Nicaragua
which flowed through these schemes included the staffing of health clinics,
financing of local businesses, the provision of a wide range of medicine, food
and everyday supplies (Economist 1989). More importantly, these links were
acting 'as enclaves of resistance to what they consider to be wrongly-minded
American foreign policy' and the hope that this policy might have been
influenced (Economist 1989) by such supportive sister city programmes.
 The building up of independent connections and partnerships with
international organisations such as USAID, the United Nations (UNEP and
UNDP) and others (Honey 1996). This can lead to funding of local or
international projects, as well as a range of activities that verge on foreign
policy or diplomatic agendas. Groups such as 'Partners of the Americas' in the
U.S. have been able to secure agricultural and medical funding for Latin
American nations, usually working through local governments (Pasley 1987).
 Cities can sometimes lead national policy, or take a stronger line in relation
to a particular issue, e.g. New York on a number of human rights and justice
issues internationally (see below).
 It can be argued that strengthening city and municipal policies can also
improve the democratic responsiveness of national foreign policy (see
Swaim & Agran 1990), providing an extra voice and area for participation
based decision making.
8
 Generally, under conditions of increasing globalisation and competition, major
cities seek to become more proactive economically and in their
transnational networks. In the case of the U.S.: Most significantly, major metropolitan areas have been the source of
approximately three-quarters of U.S. exports and particularly popular sites for
foreign businesses. Locally supported export assistance programs, incentive
packages to lure reverse investment, and enhanced cooperative linkages are
a few of the more common strategies emerging to capitalize on the
opportunities presented. Although exerting minimal influence over the
direction of broader U.S. foreign policy decisions, municipal governments are
becoming more proactive in responding to these developments and are
exploring new mechanisms to enhance their capabilities in the pursuit of
transnational relations. (Chernotsky 2001)
Certain cities or city-states have also had a particularly active role in international
affairs:  Singapore, as a sovereign city-state, has had a major economic role in Asia,
has been a vigorous member of ASEAN and the ASEAN Regional-Forum,
and was one of the main backers of ASEM (Asia-Europe meetings), the
ASEAN-Plus-Three group and supported the EAS (East Asian Summit
process) through 1996-2006. Singapore has had a vigorous diplomatic profile,
deeply involved not just with the Asia-Pacific, but since 1990 has also been
actively inviting deeper economic involvement of countries such as Germany
and even Ireland. For a country of small population, Singapore has
managed both to have a strong influence regionally, as well as to present
her own point of view of many controversial issues. Likewise, in order to
generate a non-territorial strategic depth, Singapore has had to develop a
kind of economic hinterland through a pattern of investments first in
Malaysia, then in China and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, a policy which at
times has worried Malaysia, e.g. over relative influence on the region of nearby
Johor.
 The Vatican, as a small territory set aside for the Pope and the Catholic
Church's headquarters, has had a fascinating history of involvement in
diplomatic affairs. Here, of course, it is not so much the micro-state of the
Vatican as the huge membership of the Catholic Church globally which has
such a significant impact. The Vatican has an active foreign policy, a large
diplomatic service headed by a Secretary of State, and well-trained
ambassadors, usually called nuncios (Swomley 1997). In the past the Catholic
Church had enormous political power in Italy and Europe as a whole, and was
sometimes able to make or unmake kings and emperors, while at the same
time often offering its diplomatic services to resolve disputes, e.g. the
concordat between Portugal and Spain dividing the unexplored world between
them for future colonisation, the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. Even in the
modern period, the Vatican and the Catholic leadership have at times had a
very proactive foreign policy, which has also lead to some criticism of their
role in world affairs, and indeed, to some conspiracy theories concerning
secret pacts, e.g. some writers suggest that there was a secret pact between
John Paul II and President Ronald Regan to end communism in Poland, as
well as other areas of cooperation between the Church and CIA (Flynn 1992;
Swomley 1997). It has been suggested that the Vatican has a long history of
9
interference in countries including Poland, Lebanon and Argentina, while also
trying to influence national and global policies on issues such as birth control
and homosexuality (Swomley 1997). However, the Vatican does not always
represent the views of all its members (hence internal disputes over women
priests, over the tolerance of homosexuality, and the degree to which the
Church should support liberation movements etc.), and that Church also has
great wealth and some inter-linkage with Italian business interests (Swomley
1997). Many of these issues and are poorly documented, but it is clear that
Catholic theology lends itself to a certain view of world affairs which has
direct political implications. This can be seen clearly in the Vatican's
resistance to certain clauses in the UN documents on future population policy
which was hammered out at the United Nations Population Conference in
Cairo 1994: although the Vatican agreed to many elements, the two chapters
on abortion and contraception were not accepted (Fox 1994). Conservative
policies seem likely to be sustained from 2005 under the new Pope
Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinge, with warmings from
African media that more progressive policies are need for the developing
world, e,g. in relation to HIV/AIDS (BBC 2005a). Likewise, the Vatican's
public position on issues ranging across homosexuality, feminism and
revolution shapes a political voice that is relatively strong in parts of
Africa, Latin America, Europe, and to a lesser extent in North America
(see for example Vacek 2005).
Moreover, cities have now begun to take on a broader international role generally,
thereby impinging on what would traditionally be called foreign affairs. In other cases,
cities find themselves dealing with political issues and extra-national links, even
if state or federal governments have a presumptive brief on this issues. In part this was
due to citizens and city governments taking up areas of policy and social issues. For
example:  In 1997, The New York City Council approved a bill suspending dealing with
businesses and financial institutions which conducted business with Burma
(Myanmar), presumably on the basis of the human rights abuses of the
Burmese regime (Oil Daily 1997).
 From July 1998, the New York City began suspending the operations of
some Swiss banks operating within the city due to what was perceived as
inadequate reaction to the issue of gold that NAZIs have appropriated from
Jews during World War II. This was done is spite of urging from the U.S.
State Department that this was a premature move (see Schoenfeld 2000).
 Many individual cities have begun passing laws or supporting positive
policies for social change, arguing that they cannot wait for state or federal
governments to solve these problems. Many cities have been active in the
human rights area for example, in a tradition going back to the 1980s, but
with a new twist in the US since 2001: Lively debates in city halls and state and county offices across the United
States are questioning how much power the federal government should have
to spy on individuals. These debates put under the microscope much of the
post–September 11 legislation that enhances the federal government’s
policing powers, especially the USA Patriot Act.
10
In a surprising number of cases, local jurisdictions have rejected the new U.S.
policies as too intrusive and partly to blame for an atmosphere of fear in the
country since September 11. In doing so, city halls and other local
governments have become epicenters of national opposition to the Patriot
Act.
Nancy Talanian, who directs the Massachusetts-based Bill of Rights Defense
Committee, has assembled an online list of more than 180 municipalities that
so far have passed resolutions or ordinances rejecting the Patriot Act. (Ballve
2003)
 Social issues such as anti-discrimination, law enforcement, rights for
homosexuals, positive action to help poor neighbourhoods, all often come
before City Councils, especially of large cities, e.g. Los Angeles, Chicago, New
York, London, and Sydney. Cities thus often declare themselves nuclear
free zones, nuclear free ports, expedite the granting of refugees
temporary political asylum, or informally support refugee movements (the
sanctuary movement) or provide other support activities (Pasley 1987). Cities
which rely on foreign labour have also had to sometimes move to regulate
conditions of these foreign workers at a faster pace than state level policy
may allow. In the case of Tel Aviv, for example: The crux of the Tel Aviv case is that its migrant-directed policy bears
especially on undocumented labor migrants, who make up approximately 16
percent of the city's population and who are the most problematic category of
resident from the state's point of view. In demanding recognition for the rights
of migrant workers in the name of a territorial category of "residence," and by
activating channels of participation for migrant communities, local authorities
in Tel Aviv are introducing definitions of urban membership for noncitizens
which conflict sharply with the hegemonic ethnonational policy. (Kemp &
Raijman 2004)
 Many cities have set up offices or officials that specifically act on
international issues. These may merely be special aids to the mayor or trade
offices, but Los Angeles has a Chief of Protocol, while Seattle an Office of
International Affairs (Pasley 1987). Likewise, Gold Coast City Council also has
an officer concerned primarily with international issues and the promotion of
the City internationally, and has also been active in building economic ties
across the Asia-Pacific, including Taiwan.
 The Municipal Foreign Policy (MFP) movement is a conscious attempt to
utilise cities as active bases for shaping international agendas. Mainly
developed in the U.S., it began with the anti-Vietnam War and anti-apartheid
movements but moved onto a wider perspective whereby 'citizens are
attempting to use cities as bases from which to circumscribe the foreign-policy
objectives of the nation-state.' (Kirby et al. 1995, pp268-269).
 City-city links, or the city as a source of political influence, were often utilised
by specific action groups to improve their international out-reach on
issues, e.g. in 1984 an anti-nuclear organisation mobilised 1,000 U.S. cities to
try to form links with 1,000 Soviet cities on this basis - and this was during a
second peak in the tensions of the Cold War (Pasley 1997).
 Cities have also begun to take on independent efforts on environmental
issues. The U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington (1995) published a
report on policies for managing and recycling solid wastes: this trend if
continued could have a global
impact in waste reduction
11
(Terrazas 1995), though full implementation of such techniques at first can
only be effectively adopted in America, Europe and Australia. Limited
methods of recycling exist in most developing country cities, but much extra
support is need in terms of housing and hygiene. Vietnam, for example, has
fully implemented recycling procedures where possible, a necessity first
imposed on them during the Vietnam wars. Key European cities have also
tried to radically improve their sustainability as living centres with strong
measures in support of the local environment, e.g. in London over the last
decade (see Masterton 2002). Cities also often become major partners with
external agencies, e.g. the UNDP, UNEP, or World Bank, in seeking to
manage particular problems, e.g. The Liuzhou (in south China) Environment
Management Project, which has funds from the World Bank of approximately
$100 million to cope with growth from 1.2 million to '1.8 million by 2020,
straining its already burdened water, sewer, and sanitation infrastructure' (Jiang
2005).
Both citizens and city elites, then are coming to see 'their cities as a means of affecting
global concerns'. (Kirby et al. 1995, p268). Andrew Kirby has summarised these
networking activities: In summary, we can see that technology has played a facilitating role; it has allowed
citizens to develop and extend their interactions with their neighbours and with those
who are distant. In this way a city's residents can become actors on an interactive
stage that in the past has been shared only by representatives of the nation-states.
Via electronic media localities and their representative can 'speak' directly, without the
need for diplomats and missions, and in so doing they invest the public sphere with a
dramatic, electronic topology (Kirby at al. 1995, p272).
We can tabulate some of these areas of activity: Table 1: Areas of City and Local 'foreign policy' activism (adapted from Kirby
et al. 1995, p273)
-
Arms and Arms Control
Nuclear free investing
Nuclear free zones and ports
Economic conversion of war industries
Opposition to military transports and bases
-
Human Rights
South Africa, Burma, Switzerland-related initiatives
Central America and refugee initiatives
Consumer boycotts
Drug war-economic development
-
Cultural Relations
Sister Cities
Student Exchange
Arts and performance exchange
Research linkages
Trade and Commerce
12
-
City funded world trade centres
Tourism promotion
State world trade commissions
-
Environment
Ozone, green-house gas and energy conservation measures
Raising corporate consciousness
Clean up of local environments
Opposition to the dumping of toxic wastes in the developing world
Even small cities can become quite active in linking into different international
issues. We can see a high level of activity even in a relatively small city such as
Tucson Arizona, which established city relations with Trikkala in Greece in 1949,
tried to form a peace linkage with Novokuznetska in Siberia during the 1980s, formed
a linkage with Alma Ata in 1988, and since then created 26 joint development
programmes with a number of Russian cities (Kirby et al. 1995, p276). It was perhaps
in part for this reason that in 1993 Tucson was nominated as one of the 10 best global
cities in the U.S. for international activities and basing new trade activities (Kirby et al
1995, p278).
It can be seen then, the sister-city arrangements, as well as various city and municipal
associations, have provided a stronger voice and greater expertise to cities. It has
allowed some cities to influence areas of foreign policy, and acts as a key linkage
bridging the global-local divide, aiding both local activism and a wider business
activities (Cremer et al. 2001). This has allowed cities to project their needs and
interests onto the international stage, and in some areas for residents to assert
distinctive views on human rights, labour and environmental issues It also forms
one of the channels for informal diplomacy, and for dialogue within international civil
society groups.
4. Population Growth, Megacities and the Sustainable City Project
Two other general trends have also heightened the importance of cities. The first of
these is the general trend of urbanisation, as more and more people move into or
live in cities, and as job growth concentrates in the industrial and service sectors. As a
result, even traditionally rural cultures such as China, India and Southeast and South
Asia have begun to be seriously shaped by urbanisation trends. Once 80% rural, China
is dropping towards a figure of only 65% in rural or small communities, putting
enormous pressures on its cities and also creating a huge mobile internal population.
However, even in countries such as Canada and Australia, with low populations in
relation to national area, most people live in urban areas, a trend that is deepening
rather than slowed, leading to some crisis of amenities and services and rural areas.
This has thrown many rural areas into relative decline, a trend only partly offset by
conscious efforts at decentralisation. Elsewhere, in the developing world,
urbanisation and the creation of megacities has created a pattern of
developmental crises: While there is no evidence that a threshold population size exists beyond which "cities
generate more negative than positive effects for their countries", in many cities the
rapid pace of population growth and enormous size of the population have
13
overwhelmed the capacity of municipal authorities to respond. Over 600 million people
in the cities of developing countries cannot meet their basic needs for shelter, water,
food, health, and education (6). Recent migrants to cities are particularly vulnerable,
often clustered in slums with little access to jobs or services. (Hinrichsen et al 2001)
Second, however, major population growth now occurs in large cities, greatly
intensifying their economic and environmental needs. Even with restrain in population
growth in countries such as China, it seems likely that population growth will
continued to the 8-14 billion level, perhaps then stabilising in the 21st century.
However, the Brundtland Commission noted that 90% of population growth is
occurring in poorer countries, and 90% of that in already 'bursting' cities (Brundtland
1990, p4). It must also be remembered that urban dwellers in general use more energy
and create more pollution than non-urban groups on a per capita basis - reform in the
major cities will have a strong impact on global patterns of sustainability (Masterton
2002). Growing urban centres also impinge on the environmental sustainability of
adjacent agricultural areas, creating complex tensions on nearby resources such as
water, soil, and forestry cover (Ginsburg et al. 1991).
The urban management problem was already recognised as being acute in the
1980s:
By the turn of the century, almost half of humanity will live in urban centres; the world
of the 21st century will be a largely urban world. Over only 65 years, the developing
world's urban population has increased tenfold, from around 100 million in 1920 to 1
billion today. In 1940, one person in 100 lived in a city of 1 million or more inhabitants;
by 1980, one in 10 lived in such a city. Between 1985 and the years 2000, Third World
Cities could grow by another three-quarters of a billion people. This suggests that the
developing world must, over the next few years, increase by 65 per cent its capacity to
produce and manage its urban infrastructure, services and shelter merely to maintain
today's often extremely inadequate conditions. (Brundtland 1990, p16)
These worrying trends continued through the 1990s, with cities attracting people
ahead of their economic capacity to provide jobs, homes, water, sanitation and other
basic services' (Carlsson & Ramphal 1995, p28). These trends have continued for
the developing world: By 2030 the urban population will reach 4.9 billion - 60% of the world's population. . . .
Nearly all population growth will be in the cities of developing countries, whose
population will double to nearly 4 billion by 2030 - about the size of the developing
world's total population in 1990.
"The explosive growth of cities in developing countries will test the capacity of
governments to stimulate the investment required to generate jobs and to provide the
services, infrastructure, and social supports necessary to sustain livable and stable
environments," warns an assessment of expert opinion prepared by the US National
Intelligence Council in 2000. Developing countries also will face intensified
environmental problems due to urbanization. (Hinrichsen et al. 2001)
Even though in engineering terms the problems of most cities in theory can be
managed, lack of resources and lack of political will has meant that many cities are
growing faster than the provision of services within them (Masterton 2002). Such
development is not sustainable.
14
Figure 1: Urban Growth Estimates (from Hinrichsen et al. 2001)
Table 2: World Urban population (thousands)1950-2030 (Revised 2004 estimates from the UN via
http://esa.un.org/unpp/)
Year
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
2020
2025
2030
Urban population
732 974
852 556
993 521
1 159 063
1 331 023
1 518 425
1 739 826
1 989 845
2 280 119
2 564 960
2 863 982
3 177 456
3 511 834
3 867 755
4 236 446
4 610 560
4 986 617
On this bass, the United Nations, through two Habitat Conferences, the United
Nations Environment Program, and the United Nations Centre for Human
Settlements, launched the Sustainable Cities Programme that since 1990 has become
active in some 15 countries around the world, involving institutional, administrative
and civil engineering projects (Masterton 2002). Cities involved included include
Katowice (Poland), Tunis, Ismailia, Dakar (Senegal), Accra, Ibadan, Lusaka, Maputo,
Nampula, Concepcion (Chile), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Madras, Wuhan and
15
Shenyang among others.1 The aim of this project is to improve the urban
environment, help the poor, aid economic development, and create sustainable
cities for the future. The rational for the project can be summarised: It is now widely recognized that cities play a vital role in social and economic
development in all countries. Urbanization builds diversified and dynamic economies
which raise productivity, create jobs and wealth, provide essential services, and
absorb population growth, and become key engines of economic and social
advancement. Thus, efficient and productive cities and towns are essential for
national economic growth and welfare; equally, strong urban economies generate the
resources needed for public and private investments in infrastructure, education,
health, and improved living conditions.2
The United Nations has come to view these challenges as not inherently insoluble.
On the contrary, in the end it seems that the fundamental challenge once again is the
issue of proper urban and international governance. Careful urban management, it
is argued, can begin to realise the potentials of the city, avoiding many problems and
alleviating others. For this reason, the Sustainable Cities Programme has published an
Environmental Planning and Management (EMP) Guidebook,3 which aims to provide
better guidelines, especially for major cities in developing countries. Key issues
addressed in this programme include implementing the Urban Environment
Agenda, better environmental decision making, better implementation of strategies,
enhanced managerial capacities, and more effective use of available resources
including networking among cities and the strategic use of external support.
We can gain some sense of the practical workings of the Sustainable Cities
Programme by looking at its first Demonstration City, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.4
Dar es Salaam is the industrial, economic and governmental centre of the African
nation of Tanzania, and provides a harbour and communication centre for this and
several land-locked nearby states. With a population of over 2.3 million, it has grown
over recent years at a rate of 8%, placing considerable strain on environmental and
health conditions, including some migration from the countryside as well as the
presence of some refugees, e.g. from the Congo (Tanzania has some 1 million refugee
from Congo, Rwanda and Somalia, see Mann 2002). The city itself covers 'an
extensive area, 35 km from north to south, and up to 30 km from east to west', and has
gone through fairly rapid but uneven territorial extensions since the late 1960s (Briggs
& Mwamfupe 2000).
The Sustainable Dar es Salaam Project began a timetable of cooperative activities
which can be summarised5: 


1990 Dar es Salaam become first Sustainable Cities Programme Demonstration City
April 1991 Project Document signed
mid-1992 City Environmental Profile finalised
1
For further information on this project, see the Sustainable Cities Programme Homepage at
http://unep.unep.no/unon/unchs/scp/scphome.htm and related pages.
2
"Why Improve the urban Environment?" at http://unep.unep.no/unon/unchs/scp/epm1.htm#whyepm1
3
Chapters of this work will be found http://unep.unep.no/unon/unchs/scp/emp.htm and related pages.
4
The following city information will be found at http://unep.unep.no/unon/unchs/scp/dares.htm
5
The following city information will be found at http://unep.unep.no/unon/unchs/scp/dares.htm
16





August 1992 First City Environmental Consultation provides environmental
priorities
1993 Series of Mini-consultations
1995 Implementation of Working Group action plans
1996 Consultation on Coordinating City Development and Management, and for
the national Sustainable Human Settlement Development Plan
January 1997 Consultation for the Strategic Urban Development Plan
Behind these dates, a wide range of cooperative projects began to actively deal with
the city's problems, drawing on local, national, and international groups to tackle
problems. Issues such as sold waste management, the upgrading of unserviced
settlements, planning for city expansion, air quality management, urban transport,
surface water and liquid wastes management, the managing of open and recreation
areas and urban agriculture were all addressed in the seven year period. Further
projects included managing coastal resources, including mangrove management, the
control of lime and salt extraction, and the promotion of deep sea fisheries. Getting
these programmes underway involved widespread cooperation with a large number of
international partners, e.g. Austria on a livestock project, Belgium on a sanitary
land-fill site, Canada on urban agriculture, Japan on solid waste collection services,
Sweden on remote satellite sensing data.6 Overall, the project allowed a city in a
developing nation to mobilise a large quantity of high quality of technical and
managerial expertise. Tanzania would have been unable to do without this
cooperative international support. The key here was not so much external funding, as
linkage into areas of global expertise. Likewise, several educational programs in East
Africa have begun to address issues such as 'conservation knowledge, fostering
members' personal and social development, and raising community awareness',
suggesting more positive avenues for future development (see Johnson-Pynn &
Johnson 2005).
The Sustainable Cities Programme has brought needed expertise and effective
practical help to several developing cities around the globe. A different version of
the sustainable cities project has been taken up within the European Commission,
not just to coordinate sustainable projects among cities with the existing European
Union (including some 540 local authorities with over 14 million euros to fund the
initiative over the 2001-204 period), but also to aid development in Central and
Eastern Europe, Malta and Cyprus (Europe Environment 2001).
6
The following city information will be found at http://unep.unep.no/unon/unchs/scp/dares.htm
17
Dar es Salaam as a major transport hub (Courtesy of PCL Map Library)
In general terms, cities have a wider environmental impact than suggested by their
geographical area: The economic and environmental reach of the city goes far beyond the city limits.
Modern high-density settlements now appropriate the ecological output and lifesupport functions of distant regions through trade and commerce, the generation and
disposal of wastes, and the alteration of nature's cycles. As cities continue to attract
more people and produce and consume more, they become "black holes" that soak
up the ecological output of entire regions. (Hinrichsen et al. 2001)
On this basis, relatively pragmatic improvements in public transportation,
providing clean water, conserving energy, improvements in urban farming (15% of the
world's food is produced by farmers in or near cities) and recycling can greatly
improve the quality of life of billions of people, reduce global environmental
problems, and make cities more sustainable (see Hinrichsen et al. 2001).
18
5. Cities in War and 'Peace': The Strategic Perspective
Nonetheless, cities should not just be thought of in economic, environmental or social
terms. They also have a strategic and military aspect. Cities, capitals and megacities
have an important strategic value. They are often command centres, the focus of
government, and provide the main industrial bases in many cases. As such, urban
centres have a direct strategic value, and often need to be defended again military
and non-military threats. In the language of traditional strategic theory, they are
often viewed as counter-value targets, i.e., a valuable possession which thereby
forces your opponent to defend it (this is in contrast to counter-force targeting, i.e.
against direct military targets). However, environmental and social problems can be
almost as threatening as external threats.
We can briefly assess some of these strategic aspects by turning back to World War
II. The main battlefields may have been the Atlantic, the Pacific, the great steppes of
Russia, the deserts of North Africa, Normandy and the large battles through Western
Europe. Nonetheless, the battle for cities were an important element in this 'total war'.
The ability of cities such as London, Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow to survive in
spite of major air attacks, sieges, or thrusts towards them, was a major strategic
advantage. London, by surviving the blitz (massed air attacks) actually diverted the
German airforce from more important targets and frustrated Hitler's war goals. The
German forces locked down around Leningrad, and in front of Stalingrad (see Craig
1973) and to the west and south-west of Moscow helped prevent the Germans from
sweeping into the Caucasus and accessing its oil supplies. The siege of Leningrad is
one of the greatest human survival stories of all time: with over a million dead and
living through winters without heating fuel, the city went on working and fighting for
over 872 days even though its only lifeline was a narrow road built over a frozen lake
(see Salisbury 1969). The city proved resilient, in spite of its massive suffering. Other
cities were not so fortunate: Berlin, Hamburg, Coventry, Dresden, Tokyo, Warsaw,
Nanking, Hiroshima and Nagasaki all suffered complete or nearly complete
destruction. Cities and the survival of their urban populations and their
productive capacities are a significant component of the realities of war.
This trend of strategic significance continued in several ways through 1948-2006:  Cities remained major pressure points in the contest between the Soviets and
the West. The attempt to close off Berlin led to the famous airlift to keep the
city alive in 1948-1949
 Cities were at first the main targets for nuclear weapons, literally holding
these civilian populations hostage to nuclear threat, at least until more accurate
weapon delivery systems were developed. However, in all out nuclear war, it
was expected that cities on both sides would be destroyed alongside military
targets.
 In the numerous wars and conflicts between 1949 and 2003, cities often
played a major role as targets or participants. Jerusalem, Saigon, Hanoi,
Seoul and Baghdad have experienced the desperate realities of modern
warfare. One of the most fierce examples of a city held hostage were the
events surrounding Sarajevo in Bosnia during 1992-1995. This beautiful
19
capital not only suffered an internal civil war, but was also besieged by artillery
and tanks in the surrounding hills. This closed down the international airport
quite regularly (in spite of agreements to allow UN humanitarian access), and
closed off most road access. As a result, the city was under a virtual siege in
which food, heating supplies, water, and medical supplies were always in short
supply. The city became a kind of shooting gallery in which civilians on both
sides were targeted and killed at will in a sophisticated and intentional attempt
to control the outcome of the war and influence media reporting. Sarajevo,
though now partially rebuilt, stands as a major warning that old-fashioned city
warfare, with all its horrors, is still with us in the modern age. (Unfortunately,
no comprehensive account of the military and security implications of the
Siege of Sarajevo has yet been written). The lesson, of course, is that urban
populations can become hostages during time of war. Likewise, even for
a winning army, the management and rebuilding of a war-torn city can be a
difficult exercise, e.g. the U.S. administration of Baghdad after the 2003 war
against Iraq.
 Cities and city populations, especially as centres of government, prestige or
economic power, can also become targets for acts of terrorism, operating at
the symbolic, economic and strategic levels. Over the two decades different
levels of terrorism have been experienced in Jerusalem, Paris, New York,
London and Washington, indicating both their high profile and the difficulty
of comprehensively defending such targets.
Today, cities face a much wider range of security concerns, some military, some
non-military:  A number of cities remain close to contested, or recently violent,
borders, e.g. Seoul, Beijing, St Petersburg, Jerusalem, New Delhi, Tel
Aviv, Taipei and even Tokyo lie near borders or within range of short
and medium range missiles of unfriendly or former enemy states.
 Most major cities around the world rely on imports of resources and
exports of goods for their survival. If this trade is interdicted, then
these cities come under direct threat. This applies to the major trading
and port cities of the world, and to many major cities in the AsiaPacific region. The missile tests in the Taiwan Strait of early 1996, for
example, made it clear to Taiwan in general and Taipei in particular
how unpleasant such interdictions could be.
 Some cities are directly reliant on key resources from nearby states,
e.g. water and other supplies from Malaysia in support of Singapore.
 All megacities, as we have seen, suffer from potential resource
decline, the creation of ghettoes and slum areas, and associated social
dislocation, unemployment, crime, and ethnic tensions. Failure to
attend to these issues can create cities in some ways at war with
themselves, requiring large and active police forces, e.g. Los Angeles,
New York in the 1970s and 1980s (New York has managed to turn
this around through the late 1990s), Moscow, Mexico City, and Rio de
Janeiro.
 All cities have to manage major environmental impacts which can
turn their cities in crucibles of ill-health and expensive ecological
damage. Many major cities have had to invest heavily to try to begin to
20
reverse such trends, e.g. London, Taipei, Shanghai, and Los Angeles
have had to gives serious attention to these problems. Most of the
megacities of Asia (excluding Singapore) still suffer from major
environmental problems. Since the 1980s and with UNEP help, for
example, Jakarta has been aware of serious environmental problems
for the growing city (Douglass 1991), but has yet to develop a fully
implemented plan than can preserve the city plus maintain the
integrity of nearby rural areas. It has been noted for example that the
'13 main rivers that water Jakarta are already polluted with domestic
waste, according to the green group Indonesian Forum for the
Environment' (Dursin 2000)
 In an age of low intensity warfare, including terrorism, city
populations in one way or another are often targets. The gas attack in
the Tokyo subway (conducted by the Aum Shin Rikyo cult in 1995,
killing 12 people and injuring thousands), the bombing of major urban
buildings in the U.S., attacks on commuters in Paris in during the mid1990s, the attacks on New York in 2001, and attacks on international
airports are all symptoms of these trends. Other, more devious
scenarios suggest that the communication and computer networks
which operate cities, their interconnections, and financial services
could become targets in the future for 'cyber-terrorists', paralysing
cities and their economic activities in a way which would affect
millions rather than kill a small number (see Keegan 2002).
 A number of cities of global importance are also situated in positions
which mean that they are likely to suffer major natural disasters.
Istanbul, Tokyo, Los Angeles and San Francisco all sit in or near major
earthquake areas. Past experience, e.g. the 1995 Kobe earthquake in
Japan, shows that even modern, rich societies have real difficulties in
coping with major earthquakes that occur fairly irregularly. Many cities
in tropical Asia Pacific region are also vulnerable to tidal waves (e.g.
Hong Kong) and to cyclones and typhoons. As a result, special care
needs to be given not just to city design and standards, but also the
emergency services and civil defence.
 Megacities are also identified as the locus of some disease vectors,
the location for the spreading of disease among poor populations
without adequate foot, water and sanitation, and nodes for
international transmission of new viruses and other threats, e.g. AIDS,
SARS or new flu viruses (see Gribbin 2000). For this reason, UN
debates on the lack of full implementation of the Habitat II agenda
(the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, a conference run in
Istanbul 1996) have explicitly discussed this aspect of urban
conglomerates (M2 Presswire 2001).
It can be seen, then, that cities as corporate and municipal identities need careful
management if they are to ensure their survival, let alone deal with a wide range of
issues which impact on the quality of life of their population. Urban populations are a
significant component of the global community, and the failure of these megacities
would be disastrous.
6. World Cities in the World System
21
Perhaps the biggest impact on the global system has come from large cities that are
also the location for leadership, management and control groups. Large economic and
population centres which are also the headquarters for government, NGOs, INGOs,
IGOs and corporations have enormous sway on the emerging international system.
Such cities have come to be called World Cities, and the idea here is that they drive
the world capitalist system, form major networks of trade and political interaction,
and contain the global elites who have real power in the economic and to a lesser
extent political system. Such cities are not just source of accumulation and wealth, nor
just nodes in a fast information network, they are also the hubs of the global
command and control system (Knox 1995, p7), generally dominating rural
environments and often able to challenge or avoid national policies through the
international nature of global trade and finance. They are key drivers of the main
globalisation processes as well.
This idea was first launched as a major conceptual tool in 1986 by John Friedmann.
Paul Knox summarised the concept in the following way: World cities are centres of transnational corporate headquarters, of their business
services, of international finance, of transnational institutions, and of
telecommunications and information processing. They are basing points and control
centres for the interdependent skein of financial and cultural flows which, together,
support and sustain the globalization of industry. (Knox 1995, p6)
World Cities in the 1980s were identified to include mostly cities in the core of the
developed world, i.e. London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Tokyo, plus
Singapore and Sao Paulo (Friedmann 1995, p319). Today, a number of cities can be
added to this list, including Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei, and to a lesser
extent Jakarta, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur (for the story of Asian World Cities, see
Lo and Yeung 1996). Likewise, cities such as Zurich, Brussels, Milan, Vienna,
Madrid, Toronto, Miami, Houston and Sydney can be added to list of emerging world
cities, since they have major economic and political roles (Friedmann 1995, p320). In
the periphery, cities such as Johannesburg, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Caracas,
Mexico City, and Manila (Friedmann 1995, p319) have major national roles, and
perhaps a stronger global role in the future. More recently, a study of matrices of
global service firms in 'accountancy, advertising, banking/finance and law' has been
mapped against 55 leading cities, generating a slightly different hierarchy, with 10
alpha world cities, 10 beta world cities, and not far behind them 35 gamma world
cities clustered mainly in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region (Taylor
et al. 2001). Prominent World Cities in this sense are Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong,
London, Los Angeles, Milan, New York, Paris, Singapore, and Tokyo as alpha cities,
followed by Brussels, Madrid, Mexico City, Moscow, San Francisco, Sao Paulo,
Seoul, Sydney, Toronto, and Zurich, as beta cities (Taylor et al. 2001).
Aside from housing the headquarters of corporations, international governmental
agencies, nations, finance, banking, accounting, insurance and legal headquarters,
global and communications nodes, some cities also control the 'dissemination of
information, news, entertainment and other cultural artefacts' (Friedmann 1995, p322).
New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong and other world cities
have vital roles in the global information flow and in the flow of
22
services into the global economy (Taylor et al. 2001). Knowledge, training centres,
and expertise often clusters around these World Cities (Taylor et al. 2001). As such,
even as industrial production has now been rather de-centralised or moved into poorer
or peripheral cities, the World cities retain key command and control functions in
the global economy and information network (Smith & Timberlake 2001). On this
basis, lists of World Cities can be generated by studying their service value across
different international firms, and by their connectivity across global networks (see
Table 2, Taylor et al . 2002).
Table 2: Top 10 cities ranked by total service value across 100 firms, generated out of 316 cities by 100
firms matrix (Taylor 2002)
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
City
London
New York
Hong Kong
Tokyo
Paris
Singapore
Chicago 213
Los Angeles
Frankfurt
Milan
Total
368
357
253
244
235
229
201
193
191
Certain key ideas were developed in Friedmann's formulations of World Cities
(excerpted from Friedmann 1995, pp318-327): 1. The form and extent of a city's integration with the world economy, and the
functions assigned to the city in the new spatial division of labour, will be
decisive for any structural changes occurring within it.
2. Key cities around the world are used by global capital as 'basing points' in the
spatial organization and articulation of production and markets. The
resulting linkages make it possible to arrange world cities into a complex spatial
hierarchy.
3. The global control functions of world cities are directly reflected in the
structure and dynamics of their production sectors and employment
4. World cities are major sites for the concentration and accumulation of
international capital.
5. World cities are points of destination for large numbers of both domestic
and/or international migrants.
6. World city formation brings into focus major contradictions of industrial
capitalism - among them spatial and class polarization.
7. World city growth generates social costs at rates that tend to exceed the
fiscal capacity of the state. This can lead to gaps in sustainability in poorer
sections of world cities.
These factors, coming together, have created a dynamic interaction of world cities
with the world economy - it is volatile, competitive and at times creative. However,
these trends brought together have created something of an urban crisis for the rich as
well as the poor cities of the world: 23
In this competitive struggle the poor, and especially the new immigrant populations,
tend to lose out. State budgets reflect the general balance of political power. Not only
are corporations exempt from taxes; they are generously subsidized in a variety of
other ways as well. At the same time the social classes that feed at the trough of the
transnational economy insist, and usually insist successfully, on the priority of their
own substantial claims for urban amenities and services. The overall result is a steady
state of fiscal and social crisis in which the burden of capitalist accumulation is
systematically shifted to the politically weakest, most disorganized sectors of the
population. (Friedmann 1995, p326)
This statement is perhaps somewhat exaggerated, but it does indicate that we can
classify urban workers by their access to the global economic and information
order: the 'infocrats' at the top, followed by their supporting technocratic groups, the
industrial workers often in remote locations, and lastly a large group cut off from the
effective benefits of the global economy. Thus, it seems that a clustering of leading
World Cities has tended to main a more advanced core even as megacities emerge
in the developing world: World cities can be viewed as advanced production sites where the output is in the
form of sophisticated knowledge products. The service firms in this study are large
multinational corporations in their own right. They represent an important cutting edge
industry in the contemporary world economy, a locus for large-scale profits. Hence
they can be interpreted as key core-producing agents. Viewed this way, the activities
of global service firms are confirming the core-periphery pattern across the world but
with important influences beyond the traditional core where they are motors of
semiperipheral growth. The semi-periphery is defined as a mix of core and peripheral
processes; here it is represented where there is a clustering of core processes in
world cities amidst a peripheral local hinterland. Whether world cities can be part of a
transformation to core status is still to be determined in Pacific Asia (beyond Japan) in
the early decades of the millennium. However, elsewhere in the 'third world', world
cities are too sparse to have any major influence. The cities in this analysis, selected
by their prowess in business service provision, are predominantly from the 'first world'.
Thus, with business services as a cutting edge industry, the new mapping with its
centric structure not only confirms the core-periphery pattern but suggests further that
it is taking a particularly intensive and selective form, an accentuation of geographical
polarization, under conditions of contemporary globalization. (Taylor et al. 2001)
Thus, the key cities of Western Europe and North America, along with emerging cities
in East Asia, have maintained their positions as 'central nodes' in international
information and transport flows, boosting their locals as advantaged centres in the
global system (Smith & Timberlake 2001). Other cities in Latin America, South Asia
and Africa have boomed as major productive and industrial centres, e.g. Mexico City
and Sao Paulo, but are at best secondary notes in command and information networks
in these global chains.
Certain serious implications flow from this model of World Cities and developing
world Megacities. Unless the needs of these cities can be sustained in the future,
there will be continued pollution, poverty, population growth and attendant social
problems in decaying cities which reduce rather than increase the standard of living of
the bulk of the population (see Cadman & Payne 1990). Although World Cities can
still provide the financial growth for the world system and maintain the influence of
technocratic elites, it will perhaps do so at a serious social cost which can not be easily
met by national budgets. As such, World Cities rely on investment into their systems
from a range of non-government sources, as well as active government policies to
24
keep their poorer areas operating as effective communities.
We can see one example of this in the case of Jakarta, the political and economic
capital of Indonesia. Even before the financial crisis of late 1997, Jakarta was
experiencing serious lags in developing infrastructure and services to a booming
city which had a core population of some 9 million, but in its greater metropolitan
area perhaps serviced some 17 million people and was still growing. Pollution,
transport problems, large-scale shanty towns (often built in areas which flood),
problems in the provision of proper sewage, fresh water, education and jobs, were
beginning to problematic by early 1997 (Connolly 1997). Government, local and
international efforts (UNEP and World Bank efforts, and the Kampung Improvement
Program) have for some time improved conditions in Jakarta, with future 'plans to
build a mass-transit rail in the city center and various programs to revitalize slums,
build low-cost housing, control flooding, reduce pollution and enhance green areas'
(Connolly 1997; Douglass 1991). However, even with these efforts city infrastructure
is lagging behind real demands at many levels. With the economic down-turns of
1997-1998, these problems deepened, and if problems increase for Jakarta, this will in
turn slow down recovery in the Indonesian national economy as a whole (Connolly
1997). Through 2001-2003, in spite of gradual improvement in the Indonesian
economy, Jakarta still remains a complex mix of wealth and un-met social needs.
Table 3: Projected Megacities in 2015, in millions (Hinrichsen et al 2001)
City--2015
Tokyo
Bombay
Lagos
Dhaka
Sao Paulo
Karachi
Mexico City
Shanghai
New York
Jakarta
Calcutta
Delhi
Metro Manila
Los Angeles
Buenos Aires
Cairo
Istanbul
Beijing
Rio de Janeiro
Osaka
Tianjin
Hyderabad
Bangkok
Population
26.4
26.1
23.2
21.1
20.4
19.2
19.2
19.1
17.4
17.3
17.3
16.8
14.8
14.1
14.1
13.8
12.5
12.3
11.9
11.0
10.7
10.5
10.1
25
Bearing in mind that by the year 2015, some 23-27 cities in the world will probably
have populations of over 10 million, most of them in the developing world
(Hinrichsen et al 2001; Connolly 1997), then the prosperity and sustainability of
these megacities is a major international issue. Unless the 'urban crisis' receives
further attention in the major World Cities, in the emerging megacities of Africa, Asia
and Latin America, and the huge population centres of the developing world, then the
agendas of political stability and economic sustainability will be greatly undermined.
These themes need much more serious research, as does the international role of
emerging World Cities. They are key, but often underestimated, actors in the
international system and the current phase of globalisation (Smith & Timberlake
2001).
7. Bibliography, Resources and Further Reading
Resources
Extensive information on the United Nations Habitat Program and the
Environmental Programme's (UNEP) Sustainable Cities Programme will be found
on the Internet at http://www.unchs.org/ and related pages.
A wide range of reports from he United Nations Population Division can be accessed
via http://www.un.org/esa/population/unpop.htm
Sections of the United Nations Report Cities in a Globalizing World (2001) can be
found at http://www.earthscan.co.uk/cities/contents.htm
Information about the relations among World Cities has begun to be explored in
the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Study Group and Network Web at
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc
Further Reading
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HILL, Richard Child & KIM, June Woo "Global Cities and Developmental States: New
York, Tokyo and Seoul", Urban Studies, 37 no. 12, November 2000, pp2167-2195
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TAYLOR et al. "Measurement of the world city network", Urban Studies, 39 no. 3,
December 2002, pp2367-2377 [Access via Infotrac Database]
TOH, Thian Ser (ed.) Megacities, Labour and Communications, Singapore, Institute of Asian
Studies, 1998
WEYRETER, Martina "Germany and the Town Twinning Movement", Contemporary
Review, 282 issue 1, January 2003, pp37-44 [Access via Infotrac Database]
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