Global Networks: Linked Cities » (1st Edition)

Saskia Sassen, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, is a leading expert on cities and globalizaiton. She has published numerous books, including The Global City (1991, 2000) Cities in a World Economy (1994), Globalization and its Discontents (1998), Losing Control? (1996), Guests and Aliens (1999), and The Mobility of Labor and Capital (1988).

In her pioneering book The Global City, Saskia Sassen argued that certain cities in the postindustrial world have become central nodes in the new service economy, strategic sites for the acceleration of capital and information flows as well as spaces of increasing socio-economic polarization. One effect has been that such cities have gained in importance and power relative to nation-states.
In this new collection of essays, Sassen and a distinguished group of contributors expand on the author's earlier work in a number of important ways, focusing on two key issues. First, they look at how information flows have bound global cities together in networks, creating a global city web whose constituent cities become "global" through the networks they participate in. Second, they investigate emerging global cities in the developing world-Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Beirut, the Dubai-Iran corridor, and Buenos Aires. They show how these globalizing zones are not only replicating many features of the top tier of global cities, but are also generating new socio-economic patterns as well. These new patterns of development promise to lead to significant changes in the structure of the global economy, as more and more cities worldwide are integrated into globalization's circuitry.
Includes contributions from:Linda Garcia, Patrice Riemens, Geert Lovink, Peter Taylor, David Smith, Michael Timberlake, Stephen Graham, Sueli Schiffer Ramos, Christoff Parnreiter, Felicity Gu, David Meyer, Pablo Ciccolella, Iliana Mignaqui, Eric Huybrechts, Ali Parsa. Also includes six maps.

Booknews

Contributors extend Saskia Sassen's global cities thesis to consider the information architecture binding global cities together in dense networks. They look at global cities in the South, including Shanghai, Mexico City, Beirut, and Buenos Aires, which are becoming key nodes in the emerging global urban system. Discussion encompasses firms and their global service networks, global capital exchange, and sociospatial impacts of the development of global city functions. Sassen teaches sociology at the University of Chicago. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)