Globalization and Urbanization: The Global Urban Ecosystem

The author seeks to make sense of contemporary global urbanization.  He argues against a narrow focus on local contexts and characters of cities, which obscures the economic complementarities increasingly connecting cities across the world.  He also challenges the idea of a global city, arguing that in the current stage of globalization, the characteristics ascribed to global cities apply to some extent to all cities. In this view, logistical, economic and other links give each city a potentially significant role on the world stage.

In making his case, Spencer contends that while cities are unique – and this uniqueness is part of what makes them great – they ultimately have more similarities than differences. He develops novel categories to make his case. Addis Ababa and Ho Chi Minh City are “do-your-timers”, focused mainly on transformation and material improvement. Honolulu is an “old-timer”, whose traditional advantages are appearing increasingly insufficient amidst new global pressures. Finally, New York is classed as a “for-all-timer” – preoccupied with its own historical narrative and full of people committed to contributing to it.

These very different cities are used to present an overarching view of the future of urbanization: one of increasingly integrated cities and a weakening distinction between the Global North and South. Spencer sees urbanism itself as a global culture that exists alongside local cultures within cities. This is the kind of urbanism that plants Nigerian footballers on Vietnamese football teams or that embeds Chinese communities in Addis Ababa. Globalization, in this account, is not about erasing differences between cities, but about vertically integrating the cities. The emphasis here is on the similarities and new types of connections continually being forged between city-dwellers, regardless of physical distances.

While Spencer discusses various historical stages in the growth of cities, this is very much a future-focused perspective. Indeed, he considers the cities’ uncertain future more interesting than their present.  

For more information: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442214743

For further reading on this topic: http://eau.sagepub.com/content/vol14/issue1/

Book note prepared by Christine Ro