Globalization and global cities

Lisa GIRARD

The UK and London  |  21st century  |  geography

SURVEY

globalization and global cities

(group 1)

1. Using the key-words already learnt, define globalisation

2. Using the video, personal resarch and the following documents, define global cities

3. Using personal research, the following map and the description of LONDON, explain in what ways LONDON could be considered a global city?

LONDON, a developped city

(group 2)

4. Explain and define GDP

5. What is the GDP of London? Is it different from the rest of the country? What can you say about London thanks to its GDP?

6. What is the population of London? Compare it to the most populated cities in the world.

london, a center of globalization

(group 3)

7. What makes LONDON an impulse center of globalization?

8. Show that LONDON is a major hub in globalization.

9. Show that LONDON is very attractive in the world.

london and its specific landscapes

(group 4)

10. Find the main locations for the economic, political and cultural functions in LONDON.

11. Is it possible to recognize those specific areas thanks to the landscapes?

12. Show that LONDON also takes care of sustainable development.

Document 1 : global cities

Source 1: The grid of global cities: The organizational side of the global economy mater ializes in a worldwide grid of strategic places, uppermost among which are major international business and financial centers. We can think of this global grid as constituting a new economic geography of centrality, one that cuts across national boundaries and increasingly across the old North-South divide. It has emerged as a transnational space for the formation of new claims by global capital but also by other types of actors. The most powerful of these new geographies of centrality at the inter-

urban level bind the major international financial and business centers: New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, Frankfurt, Zurich, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Sydney, Hong Kong, among others. But this geography now also includes cities such as Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Bangkok, Taipei, and Mexico City. The intensity of transactions among these cities, particularly through the financial markets, transactions in services, and investment, has increased sharply, and so have the orders of magnitude involved. [...] The space constituted by the worldwide grid of global cities, a space with new economic and political potentialities, is perhaps one of the most strategic spaces for the formation of transnational identities and communities. This is a space that is both place-centred in that it is embedded

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