Scanned by CamScanner The shantytowns in Lagos are heavily concentrated and highly polluted. Photo by Tamira.  In this unit we finished our studies of urbanism which is a good point to recap and analyzed the transformation of our cities. We can identify three major events of transformation. First, is the industrialization in the late 1800’s. The introduction of new building materials such as iron help build higher structures changing the typology of the cities. The second event occurred after WWII and it's known as suburbanization of the city. The third and actual event is the decentralization of the urban fabric forming megacities.   In this unit we also learn that the actual conditions of our postindustrial society is threatened   with globalization and hyper-network environments. Scholars claim that the “post industrial economy” is what defines the urban growth. In order to achieve this task, economies rely upon the distribution of systems that feed a global network of data and exchange. In the 1980’s  the urban thinker Manual Castells did an analysis of the complex interaction between technology society and space. In his studies, he explains the importance of space and defines it as an expression of our society. Space becomes super complex to understand in this information era which questions the need for a physical space of congregation.   Many scholars have been studying post modern societies and have created concepts such as “Global city” by Saskia Sassen and “Technopoles” by Allan J. Scott. In order to understand this megacities of our era, Robert Fishman, introduced concepts such as; technoburb to describe the reorganization of urban space. This same idea is defined by Garneau the “Edge city” in which Orange County is one of his study grounds.   Now at days, there are many events happening that are affecting the urban organization. These transformations have taken two faces that are expressed in the megacities. The first one is the decentralization and globalization of cities such as; New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and London. These cities are threatened with placelessness of post modern architecture and the idea of a non-place culture whose identity is not link to any specific society. The other face of the megacities are when the global economy puts you in a bad spot and you become the producer for the consumerist megacities. In George Parker’s article, “Decoding The Chaos Of Lagos,” we have a clear example how this mega city is suffering all the negative aspects of our era where people work only to earn about 2 or 3 dollars per day with poor quality living environment.  Questions:  1. How do you think that globalization and network societies have shaped the urban sprawl of Los Angeles?  2. Taking the place of an urban developer, how would you suggest to fix the differences between the two types of megacities like Lagos Nigeria to Orange County?  Global Capitals and Network Societies We are just about at the end of our se.

1. Scanned by CamScanner
The shantytowns in Lagos are heavily concentrated and highly
polluted. Photo by Tamira.
In this unit we finished our studies of urbanism which is a good
point to recap and analyzed the transformation of our cities. We
can identify three major events of transformation. First, is the
industrialization in the late 1800’s. The introduction of new
building materials such as iron help build higher structures
changing the typology of the cities. The second event occurred
after WWII and it's known as suburbanization of the city. The
third and actual event is the decentralization of the urban fabric
forming megacities.
In this unit we also learn that the actual conditions of our
postindustrial society is threatened with globalization and
hyper-network environments. Scholars claim that the “post
industrial economy” is what defines the urban growth. In order
to achieve this task, economies rely upon the distribution of
systems that feed a global network of data and exchange. In the
1980’s the urban thinker Manual Castells did an analysis of the
complex interaction between technology society and space. In
his studies, he explains the importance of space and defines it
as an expression of our society. Space becomes super complex
to understand in this information era which questions the need
for a physical space of congregation.
Many scholars have been studying post modern societies and
have created concepts such as “Global city” by Saskia Sassen
and “Technopoles” by Allan J. Scott. In order to understand this
megacities of our era, Robert Fishman, introduced concepts
such as; technoburb to describe the reorganization of urban

2. space. This same idea is defined by Garneau the “Edge city” in
which Orange County is one of his study grounds.
Now at days, there are many events happening that are
affecting the urban organization. These transformations have
taken two faces that are expressed in the megacities. The first
one is the decentralization and globalization of cities such as;
New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and London. These cities are
threatened with placelessness of post modern architecture and
the idea of a non-place culture whose identity is not link to any
specific society. The other face of the megacities are when the
global economy puts you in a bad spot and you become the
producer for the consumerist megacities. In George Parker’s
article, “Decoding The Chaos Of Lagos,” we have a clear
example how this mega city is suffering all the negative aspects
of our era where people work only to earn about 2 or 3 dollars
per day with poor quality living environment.
Questions:
1. How do you think that globalization and network societies
have shaped the urban sprawl of Los Angeles?
2. Taking the place of an urban developer, how would you
suggest to fix the differences between the two types of
megacities like Lagos Nigeria to Orange County?
Global Capitals and Network Societies
We are just about at the end of our semester-long survey of
urban planning
and urban form. This week we will be examining some recent
trends in global
urbanism that are reflective of broad patterns of change taking

3. place now in
our “post-industrial society.” In particular, we will look at the
intensification of
globalization over the past 50 years based on the revolution in
information
technology, and the way that this hyper-networked society has
had an
influence on the physical and social environments of cities.
We’ll start by defining globalization. While global connections
and trade can be
traced back through history for centuries, recent decades have
witnessed
intensified forms of worldwide exchanges that have resulted
from a revolution in
communications. Our current form of globalization reflects a
shift from an
international economy to a global economy in the 1970s and
1980s. In an
international economy, goods and services are traded by
individuals and firms
across national boundaries, but regulated closely by nation-
states. In a global
economy, goods and services are produced and marketed by a
“oligopolistic
web of global corporate networks whose operations span
national boundaries
but are only loosely regulated by nation-states” (World Cities in
a World
System). The globalization of industry has broken down the
production of
complex goods into a myriad of parts and forms of labor and
services that
originate in a number of countries. Finance, likewise has been

4. globalized and
there has been a spatial reorganization of global finance in a
number of world
financial centers. In short, a global economy has both
accelerated and
compressed the forces of economic exchange: reducing
distances between
people and speeding up time of interaction.
While the industrial revolution and manufacturing largely
defined much of the
urban growth from the early 19th to the mid-20th centuries,
scholars now claim
we are in a “post-industrial economy.” In basic terms, this
means that our
world economy is largely propelled by the exchange of services.
Services
include the production of intangible goods such as finance,
insurance, real
estate trade, and the distribution of information and
entertainment. Many of
these service sector industries are reliant upon information
distribution systems
that feed a global network of data and exchange – the Internet,
satellite
technology and cellular technology have fueled this process
exponentially. The
rise of a global post-industrial economy does not mean,
however, that
industrial manufacturing (or agriculture, for that matter) is any
less central to a
global economy. Rather, a burgeoning network of service
sector industries

5. have come to dominate the management, financing and trading
of industrial
products.
It is important that we don’t forget that manufacturing is still
central to a
globalized economy. In fact, as markets have expanded and
global trade
networks have opened, the site of production for manufacturing
has often
been relocated to areas of the world with cheaper land and
cheaper labor.
So while the increased service center activities of major global
cities have
brought wealth to those regions, many populations all over the
world are
suffering from the same ills of early industrialization: low
wages, long hours,
dangerous working conditions.
Scholars have sought to identify and explain for new patterns of
urban
development in this increasingly networked society. We will
look at the work
of a few of these scholars and their contributions to defining
urban space in
our current urban context.

6. One of the major patterns of urban
spatial arrangement in the last few
decades has been a dispersal of the
concentration of urban activity as a
result of the locational flexibility
afforded by telecommunications.
Whereas once Central Business
Districts (CBDs) dominated the
economic activity of major cities well
into the middle of the 20th century
because of the role of spatial
p r o x i m i t y, a n e w m o d e l h a s
e m e r g e d . S t a t e - o f - t h e - a r t
telecommunications has enabled
v a s t , m u l t i n u c l e a t e d u r b a n
agglomerations to foster multiple
nodes of business activity through a
networked society, though still
dependent on CBDs.

7. “Technoburb” is another term used to describe
this reorganization of urban space. As defined
by Robert Fishman in his book, Bourgeois
Utopias, the the “technoburb” features
“ d e c e n t r a l i z a t i o n o f h o u s i n g , i n d u s t r y,
specialized services, and office jobs; the
consequent breakaway of the urban periphery
from a central city it no longer needs.” In
contrast to the wave of suburbanization in the
postwar era, this new urban developed – as
Fishman claims – constitutes a new type of city
entirely. The physical elements of the
technoburb include industrial parks, high tech
research labs, campus-like office complexes,
shopping malls and a variety of housing. Instead
of the traditional city-suburb construct, wherein
single family homes in the suburb served as a
“refuge” from the urban center, the “detached
house on the periphery is preferred as a
convenient base from which both spouses can
rapidly reach their jobs.
Some early twentieth century writers had
predicted this spatial decentralization of
cities. The science fiction writer H.G.
Wells, writing in 1901, anticipated that
“the seemingly inexorable concentration
of people and resources in the largest
cities would soon be reversed.” The
concept of city would soon become
obsolete, and rather that urban regions

8. w o u l d r e p l a c e t h i s m o d e l o f
development. The old cities would not
completely disappear, “but they would
lose both their financial and their
industrial functions, surviving simply
because of an inherent human love of
crowds.” The “post-urban” city would
be “essentially a bazaar, a great gallery
of shops and places of concourse and
rendezvous, a pedestrian place, its
pathways reinforced by lifts and moving
platfor ms, and shielded from the
weather, and altogether a very spacious,
b r i l l i a n t , a n d e n t e r t a i n i n g
agglomeration.”
Film set of Things To Come, based on
novel by H.G. Wells
Likewise, architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision for Broadacre
City (his vision for building
the future of urban America that was never realized in terms of
specific plans) anticipated
the decentralized fabric of the technoburb. Wright model called
for an elimination of an
urban core; he claimed there was no need for a dense
concentration of people. He
placed a strong emphasis on intersections of superhighway grid,
eliminating need for a
central business district. Everyone’s city would be the vast area
that they could reach on
a network of roads within an hour’s time of travel. Wright’s

9. concepts also relied heavily
on the developing network of telecommunications. While
Wells’ and Wright’s ideas were
in some ways prophetic, they were still underdeveloped in terms
of economic
interpretations. For example, Wright’s notions of land
ownership and connection to
agriculture betrayed a strong Jeffersonian vision of America
that while being highly
egalitarian, was unrealistic in terms of sustainable land use
patterns.
Technoburbs have been variously described as “exopolis” by
Edward Soja,
“midopolis” by Joel Kotkin, or “incipient etopia” by William J.
Mitchell. Joel
Garreau sought to define phenomenon of this urban phenomenon
in his own
terms. He coined the term “edge city” to describe developments
such as
the peripheral urban growth in parts of Orange County, or the
interstitial
growth along Route 128 outside Boston, Massachusetts. In his
book of the
same name, Garreau defines Edge Cities:
• They have 5,000,000 square feet or more of leasable office
space: the
workplace of the Information Age
• They have 600,000 square feet or more of leasable retail
space – usually

10. has having at least three nationally famous department stores,
80 to 100
shops and boutique of high end merchandise – most downtowns
never
had that much
• They have more jobs than bedrooms: people head toward
this place, not
away from it
• They are perceived by the population as one place: it is a
regional end
destination for mixed use – not a starting point – that “has it
all,” from
jobs to shopping to entertainment.
• They took off after the late 1970s, when a new market of
dependable,
highly-educated workers was targeted: under-employed
housewives.
This notion of the “non-place” extends beyond generic urban
spaces of
circulation to a global branding of architecture. As Arjun
Appadurai has noted,
globalization has led to a multiplicity of cultural “flows.”
These include:

11. Ethnoscapes: flows of business personnel, guestworkers,
tourists, immigrants,
refugees, etc.
Technoscapes: flows of machinery, technology and software
produced by transnational
corporations and government agencies,
Finanscapes: flows of capital, currencies and securities
Mediascapes: flows of images and information through print
media, televisions and film
Ideoscapes: flows of ideological constructs, mostly from a
Western perspective
(democracy, sovereignty, representation, welfare rights)
Commodityscapes: flows of material culture ranging from
architecture and interior
design to clothes and jewelry
This last term – commodityscapes – can help us contextualize
the trend toward
the “placelessness” of postmodern architecture. As the global
economy and
market invades every sphere of life, evidence of local tradition
and heritage
through architecture becomes suppressed.

12. Many scholars claim that the future of cities lies in
developments in emerging
“Megacities,” which are predominantly located in the
developing Third World of the
global south. A loose definition of a megacity might begin with
population: a megacity
contains between 8 to 10 million people, or even more. In total,
one billion people are
living in the slums or shantytowns of megacities in the global
South. In an article by
Austin Zeiderman, “27 of the 33 urban agglomerations predicted
to dominate the global
cityscape within ten years will be located in the least developed
countries.”
B u t s i z e a l o n e c a n n o t d e f i n e
megacities. They are also defined by
the flows of people, capital and
goods in between a network of urban
hubs within a region. For example,
the megacity of Hong Kong extends
beyond the city proper to include
Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and small
towns in the Pearl River Delta.
The economies – and financial
livelihoods of urban populations -
within megacities often are largely
dependent upon decisions being

13. made in the corporate centers of
global cities far away. Thus,
corporate decisions to invest in or
relocate manufacturing sectors in one
region or another will have a direct
effect on the economic welfare of
millions (billions?) of urban dwellers.
Impacts of Information Technologies on
Urban Economies and Politics*
SASKIA SASSEN
Economic globalization and telecommunications have
contributed to produce a spatiality
for the urban which pivots on de-territorialized cross-border
networks and territorial
locations with massive concentrations of resources. This is not a
completely new feature.
Over the centuries cities have been at the intersection of
processes with supra-urban and
even intercontinental scalings. What is different today is the
intensity, complexity and
global span of these networks, and the extent to which
significant portions of economies
are now dematerialized and digitalized and hence can travel at
great speeds through these
networks. Also new is the growing use of digital networks by
often poor neighborhood

14. organizations to pursue a variety of both intra-urban and
interurban political initiatives.
All of this has raised the number of cities that are part of cross-
border networks operating
at often vast geographic scales. Under these conditions, much of
what we experience and
represent as the local turns out to be a micro-environment with
global span.
The new urban spatiality thus produced is partial in a double
sense: it accounts for
only part of what happens in cities and what cities are about,
and it inhabits only part of
what we might think of as the space of the city, whether this be
understood in terms as
diverse as those of a city’s administrative boundaries or in the
sense of the multiple public
imaginaries that may be present in different sectors of a city’s
people.1
Below I unpack some of the elements that condition this
complex pivoting on cross-
border networks and territorial localizations, focusing
particularly on the urban economy
and on the new types of place-centered politics of the global
that we see emerging.
New interactions between capital fixity and hypermobility
Information technologies have not eliminated the importance of
massive concentrations
of material resources but have, rather, reconfigured the
interaction of capital fixity and
hypermobility. The complex management of this interaction has
given some cities a new
competitive advantage. The vast new economic topography that

15. is being implemented
through electronic space is one moment, one fragment, of an
even vaster economic chain
that is in good part embedded in non-electronic spaces. There is
today no fully virtualized
firm or economic sector. Even finance, the most digitalized,
dematerialized and
ß Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001. Published by
Blackwell Publishers,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
* This article is based on the author’s updated edition ofThe
global city(2001b).
1 There is by now an enormous literature on the various aspects
and implications of these and other new
developments which it is impossible to cite in such a short
piece. See, e.g., Corbridgeet al. (1994), Castells
(1996), Allen et al. (1999), Low (1999), Marcuse and van
Kempen (2000), Yeung (2000).
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research Volume
25.2 June 2001
globalizedof all activities hasa topographythat weavesback and
forth betweenactual
anddigital space.2 To different extentsin different typesof
sectorsanddifferent typesof
firms, a firm’s tasksnow are distributedacrossthesetwo kinds of
spaces;further, the
actualconfigurationsaresubjectto
considerabletransformationastasksarecomputerized

16. or standardized,marketsare further globalizedand so on.
Let me selectthe following threeissuesfor discussion.
The importanceof social connectivityand central functions
First, while the new telecommunicationstechnologiesdo indeed
facilitate geographic
dispersalof economicactivitieswithout losing
systemintegration,they havealsohadthe
effect of strengtheningthe importanceof central coordinationand
control functionsfor
firms and for markets.Major centershave
massiveconcentrationsof state-of-the-art
resourcesthat allow themto maximizethe benefitsof
telecommunicationsandto govern
the new conditionsfor operatingglobally. Even
electronicmarketsrely on tradersand
bankswhich arelocatedsomewhere;for
instance,Frankfurt’selectronicfuturesmarketis
actually embeddedin a global network of financial
centers,eachof which concentrates
resourcesthat are necessaryfor Frankfurt’s marketto thrive.
OnepropositionI derivefrom this mix of variablesis that
organizationalcomplexity
is a key condition necessaryfor a firm or marketto maximizethe
benefitsit can derive
from the new informationtechnologies.It is not enoughto
havethe infrastructure.It also
takesa mix of other resources:state-of-the-artmaterial and
humanresources,and the
social networks that maximize connectivity. Much of the value
added by these
technologiesfor advancedservicefirms and
advancedmarketsrepresentsa new type of
urbanizationeconomy insofar as it dependson conditions

17. external to the firms and
marketsthemselvesand to the technologiesas such.
A second fact that is emerging with greater clarity concerns the
meaning of
‘information’. Thereare two typesof information that matterto
advancedservicesfirms.
One is the datum, which may be complex but comes in the form
of standardized
information easilyavailableto thesefirms: e.g.the detailsof a
privatization in a particular
country. The secondtype of information is far more diffi cult to
obtain becauseit is not
standardized.It requires interpretation/evaluation/judgment.It
entailsnegotiatinga series
of dataand a seriesof interpretations of a mix of datain the
hopeof producinga higher
order type of information. Accessto the first kind of information
is now global and
immediate thanksto the digital revolution. But it is the second
type of information that
requiresa complicatedmixture of elements, not only technicalbut
alsosocial — what we
could think of as the social infrastructurefor global
connectivity. It is this type of social
infrastructurewhich gives majorfinancialcentersa
strategicrole.In principle,thetechnical
infrastructurefor connectivity canbereproducedanywhere,but not
thesocialconnectivity.
Whenthe morecomplexforms of informationneededto
executemajor international
dealscannotbe obtainedfrom existing databases,no matterwhat
onecanpay, thenone
needs the social information loop and the associatedde facto
interpretationsand

18. inferencesthat come with bouncingoff information
amongtalented,informed people.3
The processof making inferences/interpretations into
‘information’ takesquite a mix of
talentsand resources.4
2 Anotherangleinto theseissuescameout of the
annualAspenRoundtableon ElectronicCommerce(1998),
that bringstogetherthe CEOsof the main
softwareandhardwarefirms aswell asthe key venturecapitalists
in thesector;the overall senseof theseinsiderswasoneof
considerablelimits to themediumandthat it will
not simply replaceother typesof marketsbut ratherproducenew
kinds of complementarities.
3 It is the importancefor firms andmarketsof this complextype
of ‘information’ that hasgiven a whole new
importanceto credit-ratingagencies,for instance.Partof
theratinghasto do with interpretingandinferring.
When this interpretingbecomes‘authoritative’, it
becomes‘information’ availableto all.
4 Risk management,for example,which hasbecomecrucial with
globalizationdueto thegrowingcomplexity
anduncertaintythat comeswith operating in multiple
countriesandmarkets,requiresenormousfine tuning
ß Joint Editors and Blackwell PublishersLtd 2001
412 Debatesand developments
In brief, urbancentersprovidethe mix of resourcesandthe
socialconnectivitywhich

19. allow a firm or marketto maximizethe benefitsof its
technicalconnectivity.
The spatialitiesof the center
The combinationof the new capabilitiesfor mobility alongwith
patternsof concentration
andoperationalfeaturesof the cutting-edgesectorsof
advancedeconomiessuggeststhat
spatial concentrationremains a key feature of these sectors.But
it is not simply a
continuationof older patternsof
spatialconcentration.Todaythereis no longera simple
straightforward
relationbetweencentralityandsuchgeographicentitiesasthe
downtown,
or the central businessdistrict (CBD). In the past, and up to
quite recently in fact,
centrality was synonymouswith the downtownor the CBD. The
new technologiesand
organizationalforms havealteredthe spatialcorrelatesof
centrality.5
Information technologieshave had a sharp effect on the spatial
organizationof
economicactivity. But this effect is not uniform: the locational
options of firms vary
considerably.It is not simply a matter of reducingthe weight of
place. The scattered
evidencefor the last decade,which saw the widespreaduseof
information technologies
by firms in a broadrangeof sectors,allows us to identify
threetypesof firms in termsof
their locational patterns.First, firms with highly
standardizedproducts/servicesseean
increasein their locational options insofar as they can maintain
systemintegrationno

20. matterwherethey are located.This might also hold for firms with
specializedproducts/
services that do not require elaborate contracting and
subcontractingor suppliers
networks,all conditionswhich tendto makean
urbanlocationmoreefficient. Dataentry
andsimplemanufacturingwork canbe movedto whereverlabor
andothercostsmight be
lowest. Headquarterscan move out of large cities and to
suburbanlocations or small
towns.
A secondlocationalpatternis that representedby firms which
aredeeplyinvolved in
the global economy and hence have increasingly complex
headquarters’functions.
Perhapsironically, the complexity of headquarters’functions is
such that they get
outsourcedto highly specializedservicefirms. This frees up the
headquartersto locate
anywhereso long as they can accessa highly
specializednetworked service sector
somewhere,most likely in a city. The third locational patternis
that evident in highly
specializednetworkedservicesectors.It is
thesesectors,ratherthantheheadquarters,that
benefitfrom spatialagglomerationat the point of
production.Thesefirms areembedded
in intensetransactionswith othersuchfirms in
kindredspecializationsandaresubjectto
time pressuresand the constraintsof imperfect information
discussedin the preceding
section.Along with some of the featurescontributing to
agglomerationadvantagesin
financial servicesfirms, this hasthe effect of renderingthe
networkof specializedservice

21. firms more place-bound than the hypermobility of their products
and of their
professionalswould indicate.
Given the differential impactsof the capabilitiesof the new
informationtechnologies
on specific types of firms and of sectorsof the economy,the
spatial correlatesof the
‘center’ canassumeseveralgeographicforms,likely to
beoperatingsimultaneouslyat the
macro-level.Thus,the centercanbe the CBD, asit still largely is
for someof the leading
of centraloperations.We now know that many,if not most,major
tradinglossesunrelatedto financial crises
over the last decadehave involved human error or fraud. The
quality of risk managementwill depend
heavily on the top people in a firm rather than simply on
technical conditions, such as electronic
surveillance.Consolidatingrisk managementoperationsin one
site, usually a central one for the firm, is
now seengenerallyas more effective. We have seenthis in the
caseof severalmajor banks:Chaseand
Morgan StanleyDeanWitterin the US, DeutscheBank and Credit
Suissein Europe.
5 Severalof the organizinghypothesesin the global-city model
concernthe conditionsfor the continuity of
centrality in advancedeconomicsystemsin the face of major new
organizationalforms and technologies
thatmaximizethepossibilityfor
geographicdispersal(seetheintroductionin Sassen,2001b;for a
variety of
perspectivessee,e.g.,Salomon,1996; Moulaert and Scott, 1997;
Landrieuet al., 1998).

22. ß Joint Editors and Blackwell PublishersLtd 2001
Debates 413
sectors,notablyfinance,or an alternativeform of CBD,
suchasSilicon Valley. Yet even
asthe CBD in major internationalbusinesscentersremainsa
strategicsite for the leading
industries, it is one profoundly reconfiguredby technologicaland
economic change
(Ciccolella and Mignaqui, 2001; Fainstein,2001; Schiffer
Ramos,2001). Further,there
are often sharpdifferencesin the patternsassumedby this
reconfiguringof the central
city in different parts of the world, notably as betweenthe
United Statesand western
Europe(e.g. Kunzmann,1994; Hitz et al., 1995; Veltz, 1996).
Second,the centercan extendinto a metropolitanareain the form
of a grid of
nodes of intense business activity. One might ask whether a
spatial organization
characterizedby densestrategicnodesspreadover a broaderregion
does, in fact,
constitutea new form of organizingthe territory of the ‘center’,
ratherthan,as in the
more conventional view, an instance of suburbanization or
geographicdispersal.
Insofarasthesevariousnodesarearticulatedthroughdigital
networks,they representa
new geographic correlate of the most advancedtype of ‘center’.
This is a partly
deterritorialized spaceof centrality.6

23. Third, we areseeingthe formationof a transterritorial‘center’
constitutedvia intense
economictransactionsin the networkof global
cities.Thesetransactionstakeplacepartly
in digital spaceand partly through conventionaltransportand
travel. The result is a
multiplication of often highly specialized circuits connecting
sets of cities. These
networksof major internationalbusinesscentersconstitutenew
geographiesof centrality.
The most powerful of thesenew geographiesof centrality at the
global level binds the
major internationalfinancial and businesscenters:New York,
London, Tokyo, Paris,
Frankfurt,Zurich, Amsterdam,Los Angeles,Sydney,Hong Kong,
amongothers.But this
geographynow also includescities suchas Bangkok,Seoul,Taipei,
SaoPaulo,Mexico
City. In the caseof a complex landscapesuch as Europe’s, we
see, in fact, several
geographiesof centrality, one global, otherscontinentaland
regional.7
Fourth, new forms of centrality are being constitutedin
electronically generated
spaces.For instance,strategic componentsof the financial
industry operatein such
spaces.The relation betweendigital and actual spaceis complex
and varies among
different typesof
economicsectors(seeSassen,2001a;Graham,2001).
What doescontextualitymeanin this setting?
Thesenetworkedsub-economiesoperatingpartly in actual
spaceand partly in globe-
spanningdigital spacecannoteasilybe contextualizedin termsof

24. their surroundings.Nor
can the individual firms and markets.The orientation of this
type of sub-economyis
simultaneously towards itself and towards the global. The
intensity of internal
transactionsin such a sub-economy(whetherglobal finance or
cutting edgehigh-tech
sectors)is suchthat it overridesall considerationsof the
broaderlocality or urbanarea
within which it exists.
On another,larger scale,in my researchon global cities I found
ratherclearly that
6 This regionalgrid of nodesrepresents,in my analysis,a
reconstitutionof the conceptof region.Further,
it shouldnot be confusedwith the suburbanizationof
economicactivity. I conceiveof it as a spaceof
centrality partly locatedin older socioeconomicgeographies,such
as that of the suburbor the larger
metropolitan region, yet distinct precisely becauseit is a spaceof
centrality. Far from neutralizing
geography,the regional grid is likely to be embeddedin
conventional forms of communication
infrastructure,notably rapid rail and highwaysconnectingto
airports.Ironically perhaps,conventional
infrastructureis likely to maximize the economicbenefitsderived
from telematics.I think this is an
importantissuethat hasbeenlost somewhatin discussionsaboutthe
neutralizationof geographythrough
telematics.For an exception,see Peraldi and Perrin (1996),
Landrieu et al. (1998) and Scott et al.
(2001).
7 Methodologically, I find it useful to unpack theseintercity
transactionsinto the specific, often highly

25. specializedcircuits that connectparticularsetsof cities. For
instance,whenexaminingfuturesmarkets, the
setof cities includesSaoPauloandKuala Lumpur. Thesetwo cities
fall out of the picturewhenexamining
the gold market;this market,on the other
hand,includesJohannesburgand Sydney.
ß Joint Editors and Blackwell PublishersLtd 2001
414 Debatesand developments
thesesub-economiesdevelopa strongerorientationtowardsthe
global marketsthan to
their hinterlands.Therebythey overridea key propositionin the
urbansystemsliterature,
to wit, that cities and urbansystemsintegrateand
articulatenationalterritory. This may
havebeenthe caseduring the period when massmanufacturingand
massconsumption
were the dominant growth machinesin developedeconomiesand
thrived on national
scalings of economic processes.Today, the ascendanceof
digitalized, globalized,
dematerializedsectorssuchasfinancehasdilutedthatarticulationwit
h thelargernational
economy and the immediate hinterland and created world-
market oriented sub-
economies.
The articulation of these sub-economieswith other zones and
sectors in their
immediatesociospatialsurroundingsare of a specialsort. There
are the various highly
pricedservicesthat caterto the workforce,from up-

26. scalerestaurantsandhotelsto luxury
shopsand cultural institutions,typically part of the
sociospatialorder of thesenew sub-
economies.But therearealsovariouslow-pricedservicesthatcaterto
thefirms andto the
householdsof the workers and which rarely ‘look’ like they are
part of the advanced
corporateeconomy.Thedemandby firms andhouseholdsfor
theseservicesactuallylinks
two worlds that we think of as radically distinct. It is
particularly a third instancethat
concernsme here,the large portionsof the urbansurroundingthat
havelittle connection
to theseworld-marketorientedsub-economies,even though
physically proximate.It is
thesethat engendera questionaboutcontextandits meaningwhenit
comesto thesesub-
economies.
What then is the ‘context’, the local, here? The new networked
sub-economy
occupiesa strategic geography,partly deterritorialized,that cuts
acrossborders and
connectsa variety of pointson the globe.It occupiesonly a
fraction of its ‘local’ setting;
its boundariesare not those of the city where it is partly located,
nor those of the
‘neighborhood’. This sub-economyfunctions as an intermediary
institutional order
betweenthe vastconcentrationof very materialresourcesit
needswhenit hits the ground
and the fact of its global span or cross-bordergeography.Its
interlocutor is not the
surrounding,the context,but the fact of the global.
I am not surewhat this tearingawayof the contextandits

27. replacementwith the fact
of the global could meanfor urbanpracticeandtheory.The
strategicoperationis not the
searchfor a connectionwith the ‘surroundings’,the context.It is,
rather,installationin a
strategiccross-bordergeographyconstitutedthroughmultiple
‘locals’. In the caseof the
economy,I seea re-scaling:old hierarchies— local,
regional,national,global — do not
hold. Goingto thenextscalein termsof sizeis no longerhow
integrationis achieved.The
local now transactsdirectly with the global — the global installs
itself in locals andthe
global is itself constitutedthrougha multiplicity of locals.
A politics of placeson global circuits
Digital networks are also contributing to the production of
counter-geographies of
globalization.As is the casewith global corporatefirms,
thesecounter-geographiescan
be constitutedat multiple scales.Digital networkscan be usedby
political activistsfor
global or non-local transactions and they can be used for
strengthening local
communicationsand transactionsinside a city. Recovering how
the new digital
technology can serve to support local initiatives and alliances
across a city’ s
neighborhoods(see,e.g.,Eade,1996;Lovink andRiemens,2001)is
extremelyimportant
in an agewherethe notion of the local is often seenaslosing
groundto global dynamics
and actors.
I conceptualizethese‘alternative’ networksas counter-

28. geographiesof globalization
becausethey are deeply imbricated with some of the major
dynamicsconstitutive of
globalizationyet arenot partof theformal apparatusor of
theobjectivesof this apparatus:
ß Joint Editors and Blackwell PublishersLtd 2001
Debates 415
the formationof global markets,the intensifyingof
transnationalandtranslocalnetworks,
the developmentof communication technologieswhich easily
escapeconventional
surveillancepractices.The strengtheningand, in someof
thesecases,the formation of
new global circuits areembeddedor madepossibleby the
existenceof a global economic
systemand its associateddevelopmentof variousinstitutional
supportsfor cross-border
moneyflows andmarkets.8 Thesecounter-geographies
aredynamicandchangingin their
locational features.And they include a very broad range of
activities, including a
proliferation of criminal activities.
Throughthe Internet,local initiatives becomepart of a global
network of activism
without losing the focuson specificlocal struggles.It enablesa
new type of cross-border
political activism, one centeredin multiple localities yet
intenselyconnecteddigitally.
Activists candevelopnetworksfor circulatingnot only
information(aboutenvironmental,

29. housing, political issuesetc.) but also political work and
strategies.There are many
examplesof sucha new type of cross-borderpolitical work. For
instance,SPARC,started
by andcenteredon women,beganasaneffort to
organizeslumdwellersin Bombayto get
housing.Now it hasa networkof suchgroupsthroughoutAsia,
andsomecities in Latin
AmericaandAfrica. This is oneof the key forms of critical
politics that the Internetcan
makepossible:a politics of the local with a big difference —
thesearelocalitiesthat are
connectedwith eachotheracrossa region,a countryor the world.
Becausethe networkis
global doesnot meanthat it all hasto happenat the global level.
Current usesof digital media in this new type of cross-
borderpolitical activism
suggest,very broadly, two types of digital activism: one that
consistsof actual city-
centered— or rural-communitycentered,for that matter —
activist groupswho connect
with other such groupsaroundthe world. The secondtype of
digital network centered
politics is onethat doesmostof its work in the digital
networkandthenmay or may not
convergeon an actual terrain for activism, as was the caseof
Seattlewith the WTO
meeting.Much of the work and the political effort is centeredon
the transactionsin the
digital network.OrganizingagainsttheMultilateral Agreementon
Investmentwaslargely
a digital event.But whenthesedigital political actionshit the
ground,they cando sovery
effectively, especiallyin the concentratedplacesthat cities are.

30. The large city of today,especiallythe global city, emergesas a
strategicsite for these
new typesof operations.It is a strategicsite for global
corporatecapital.But it is alsooneof
the siteswherethe formation of new claims by informal (or asyet
not formalized)political
actors materializesand assumesconcreteforms. The loss of power
at the national level
producesthe possibility of new forms of power and politics at
the subnationallevel. The
national as container of social processand power is cracked (e.g.
Taylor, 2000). This
crackedcasingopensup possibilitiesfor a political geographythat
links subnationalspaces
and allows non-formalpolitical actorsto
engagestrategiccomponentsof global capital.
The cross-bordernetwork of global cities is a space where we
are seeing the
formationof newtypesof ‘global’ politics of placewhich
contestcorporateglobalization.
The demonstrationsby the anti-globalizationnetwork have
signaledthe potential for
developinga politics centeredon placesunderstoodaslocationsin
global networks.This
is a place-specificpolitics with globalspan.It is a typeof political
work deeplyembedded
in people’s actions and activities but made possiblepartly by the
existenceof global
digital linkages.Further,it is a form of political andinstitution-
buildingwork centeredin
cities andnetworksof cities andin non-formalpolitical actors.We
seeherethe potential
transformationof a whole rangeof ‘local’ conditionsor
institutionaldomains(suchasthe
household,the community,the neighborhood,the local school and

31. health-careentities)
where women ‘confined’ to domesticroles, for instance,remain
the key actors.From
beinglived or experiencedasnon-political,or
domestic,theseplacesaretranformedinto
‘micro-environmentswith global span’.
8 I havearguedthis for the caseof international labor
migrations(e.g. Sassen,1998: chapters2, 3 and 4).
ß Joint Editors and Blackwell PublishersLtd 2001
416 Debatesand developments
What I meanby this term is that technicalconnectivitywill
createa variety of links
with othersimilar local entitiesin otherneighborhoodsin the
samecity, in othercities,in
neighborhoodsand cities in other countries.A community of
practicecan emergethat
createsmultiple
lateral,horizontalcommunications,collaborations,solidarities,sup
ports.
This can enablelocal political or non-political actorsto enterinto
cross-borderpolitics.
The spaceof the city is a far moreconcretespacefor politics
thanthat of the nation
(Isin, 2000; Sassen,2000). It becomesa placewherenon-
formalpolitical actorscan be
part of the political scenein a way that is much more difficult at
the national level.
Nationally, politics needsto run throughexisting formal
systems:whetherthe electoral

32. political systemor the judiciary (taking state agenciesto court).
Non-formal political
actors are renderedinvisible in the spaceof national politics. The
spaceof the city
accommodatesa broadrangeof political activities —
squatting,demonstrationsagainst
police brutality, fighting for the rights of immigrantsand the
homeless,the politics of
cultureandidentity, gay andlesbianandqueerpolitics. Much of
this becomesvisible on
the street.Much of urbanpolitics is concrete,enactedby
peopleratherthandependenton
massivemedia technologies.Street-levelpolitics
makespossiblethe formation of new
typesof political subjectsthat do not haveto go throughthe
formal political system.
It is in this sensethat thosewho lack power,thosewho
aredisadvantaged,outsiders,
discriminatedminorities,cangain presencein global cities,
presencevis-à-vis powerand
presencevis-à-vis each other (Sassen,1998: Chapter 1). This
signals, for me, the
possibility of a new type of politics centeredin new types of
political actors.It is not
simply a matterof havingor not havingpower.Thesearenewhybrid
basesfrom which to
act.
In this broader and richer context, the political uses of digital
technologiescan
becomeembeddedin the local. As a politics this is clearly
partial, but could be an
important building block of the mobilization for global justice
and for demanding
accountability from global corporate power. We are seeing the

33. emergenceof a
denationalizedpolitics centeredon cities andoperatingin global
networksof cities. This
is a kind of politics of the global that doesnot needto go
throughsomesort of world state
or the supranationallevel. On the contrary,it
runsthroughplacesyet engagesthe global.
It would constructa counter-geographyof globalization.We may
be just at the beginning
of this process.
SaskiaSassen([email protected]),Social
ScienceResearchBuilding, The
University of Chicago,1126 east59th Street,Chicago,IL
60637,USA.
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