Providing the first comprehensive survey of new interdisciplinary scholarship on globalized urbanization, this important volume contains fifty selections from classic writings by authors such as John Friedmann, Michael Peter Smith, Saskia Sassen, Peter Taylor, Manuel Castells and Anthony King, as well as major contributions by other international scholars of global city formation. Classic and contemporary case studies of globalizing cities serve to illuminate global city theory within Europe, North America and East Asia, whilst contributing authors explore key topics including: the histories and geographies of globalized urbanization the social and economic order of globalizing cities pathways of globalized urbanization in the older industrialized world, the developing world and on the 'margins' of the world economy state restructuring, urban governance and socio-political contestation in globalizing cities culture, identity and representation in globalizing cities emerging issues and debates in contemporary research on globalized urbanization. Containing wide-ranging discussions on major theories, methods, themes and debates, and a combination of theoretical and methodological contributions, comparative analyses and detailed case studies, this key textbook will appeal to a broad interdisciplinary readership at undergraduate and graduate levels in urban, globalization, development, cultural, and environmental studies.

Table of Contents:
Part 1: Global City Formation: Emergence of a Concept and Research Agenda 1. Prologue the Metropolitan Explosion 2. Divisions of Space and Time in Europe 3. Urban Specialization in the World System: An Investigation of Historical Cases 4. Global City Formation in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles: An Historical Perspective 5. The New International Division of Labor, Multinational Corporations, and Urban Hierarchy 6. World City Formation: An Agenda for Research and Action 7. The World City Hypothesis Part 2: Structures, Dynamics and Geographies of Global City Formation 8. Prologue 100-Mile Cities 9. Cities and Communities in the Global Economy 10. Locating Cities on Global Circuits 11. World City Network: A New Metageography? 12. Global Cities and Global Classes: The Peripheralization of Labour in New York City 13. Inequality in Global City-Region 14. Global Grids of Glass: On Global Cities, Telecommunications and Planetary Urban Networks Part 3: Local Pathways of Global City Formation: Classic and Contemporary Case Studies 15. Prologue Cities, the Informational Society and the Global Economy 16. The City as a Landscape of Power: London and New York as Global Financial Capitals 17. The Urban Restructuring Process in Tokyo During the 1980s: Transforming Tokyo into a World City 18. Detroit and Houston: Two Cities in Global Perspective 19. Global City Zurich: Paradigms of Urban Development 20. Global Cities and Developmental States: New York, Tokyo and Seoul 21. The Stimulus of a Little Confusion: A Contemporary Comparison of Amsterdam and Los Angeles Part 4: Globalization, Urbanization and Uneven Spatial Development: Perspectives on Global City Formation In the Global South 22. Prologue a Global Agora vs. Gated City-Regions 23. Building, Architecture, and the New International Division of Labor 24. The World City Hypothesis: Reflections from the Periphery 25. `Fourth World’ Cities in the Global Economy: The Case of Phnom Penh, Cambodia 26. Global and World Cities: A View from off the Map 27. Globalization and the Corporate Geography of Cities in the Less-Developed World 28. São Paulo: Outsourcing and Downgrading of Labor in a Globalizing City Part 5: Contested Cities: State Restructuring, Local Politics and Civil Society 29. Prologue the Global City as World Order 30. Global Cities, `Glocal’ States: Global City Formation and State Territorial Restructuring in Contemporary Europe 31. World City Formation on the Asia-Pacific Rim: Poverty, `Everyday’ Forms of Civil Society and Environmental Management 32. `Global Cities’ vs `Global Cities:’ Rethinking Contemporary Urbanism as Public Ecology 33. The Neglected Builder of Global Cities 34. The Globalization of Frankfurt Am Main: Core, Periphery and Social Conflict (2000) 35. Urban Social Movements in an Era of Globalization Part 6: Representation, Identity and Culture in Global Cities: Rethinking the Local and the Global 36. Prologue: Towards Cosmopolis - A Postmodern Agenda 37. The Cultural Role of World Cities 38. World Cities: Global? Postcolonial? Postimperial? Or Just the Result of Happenstance?: Some Cultural Comments 39. `Global Media Cities:’ Major Nodes of Globalizing Culture and Media Industries 40. Willing the Global City: Berlin’s Cultural Strategies of Interurban Competition After 1989 41. Exploring Colombo: The Relevance of a Knowledge of New York 42. Culturing the World City: An Exhibition of the Global Present (2005) Part 7: Emerging Issues in Global Cities Research: Refinements, Critiques and New Frontiers 43. Prologue: Whose City is it? 44. Space in the Globalizing City 45. Globalization and the Rise of City Regions 46. The Global Cities Discourse: A Return to the Master Narrative? 47. Immigration and the Global City Hypothesis: Towards an Alternative Research Agenda 48. Pathways to Global City Formation: A View From the Developmental City-State of Singapore 49. World City Topologies 50. The Urban Revolution