In How to Build a Global City, Michele Acuto considers the rise of a new generation of so-called global cities—Singapore, Sydney, and Dubai—and the power that this concept had in their ascent, in order to analyze the general relationship between global city theory and its urban public policy practice. The global city is often invoked in theory and practice as an ideal model of development and a logic of internationalization for cities the world over. But the global city also creates deep social polarization and challenges how much local planning can achieve in a world economy. Presenting a unique elite ethnography in Singapore, Sydney, and Dubai, Acuto discusses the global urban discourses, aspirations, and strategies vital to the planning and management of such metropolitan growth. The global city, he shows, is not one single idea, but a complex of ways to imagine a place to be global and aspirations to make it so, often deeply steeped in politics. His resulting book is a call to reconcile proponents and critics of the global city toward a more explicit engagement with the politics of this global urban imagination.

This book 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.

This volume focuses on whether the assumed differences between London, the global city and Jerusalem, the holy city reflected in people's experiences in living in the two cities. The book suggests that some of these everyday practices are not so different as might be assumed.

This collection uses the transnational activities of municipal urban governments to historicize the origins and development of the global city, focusing on how urban problems were addressed with concepts that emerged from the "world in between" nations and cities.

Based on funded research of 13 city regions across three continents, this comparative study looks at changes in land use since 1970. The socio-economic and physical forms of city regions have also been examined for comparative study.

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While global cities have mostly been characterized as sites of intensive and extensive economic activity, the quest for global city status also increasingly rests on the creative production and consumption of culture and the arts. Arts, Culture and the

A unique comparative study based on funded research, of eleven city regions across three continents looking at changes over the last 30 years. Detailed changes in land use are presented here with series of maps prepared especially for the study. The socio-economic and physical forms of city regions have been examined for comparative study and the findings will be of interest to all those concerned with urban development in their professional and academic work. The book features numerous maps which underline research findings. Cities covered are: Ankara, Bangkok, Boston, Madrid, Randstad, San Diego, Chile, Sao Paulo, Seattle and the Central Puget, Taipei, Tokyo, West Midlands.

Over the last three decades, our understanding of the city worldwide has been revolutionized by three innovative theoretical concepts – globalisation, postcolonialism and a radically contested notion of modernity. The idea and even the reality of the city has been extended out of the state and nation and re-positioned in the larger global world. In this book Anthony King brings together key essays written over this period, much of it dominated by debates about the world or global city. Challenging assumptions and silences behind these debates, King provides largely ignored historical and cultural dimensions to the understanding of world city formation as well as decline. Interdisciplinary and comparative, the essays address new ways of framing contemporary themes: the imperial and colonial origin of contemporary world and global cities, actually existing postcolonialisms, claims about urban and cultural homogenisation and the role of architecture and built environment in that process. Also addressed are arguments about indigenous and exogenous perspectives, Eurocentricism, ways of framing vernacular architecture, and the global historical sociology of building types. Wide-ranging and accessible, Writing the Global City provides essential historical contexts and theoretical frameworks for understanding contemporary urban and architectural debates. Extensive bibliographies will make it essential for teaching, reference and research.

A Study on Globalizing Cities is the latest masterpiece by Zhou Zhenhua, a famous Chinese economist, who closely tracks the theoretical study of global cities and is actively engaged in the strategic research of Shanghai''s development. With rich empirical data and an in-depth analysis, this book is of great theoretical and practical significance. Different from studies on global cities by renowned western scholars, this book extends its perspective to globalizing cities. It explores a unique development model for China''s globalizing cities by adopting a creative angle of observation and analytical methods. By criticizing that the traditional global city theory derives the logic relations of global cities directly from globalization, Mr Zhou puts forward the concept of globalization city, which is introduced as a new intermediate explanatory variable. More importantly, this book emphasizes that the building of global cities is not only dependent on the distribution of urban space and urban economic development but also on comprehensive construction of multiple structures and functions of cities.