Urban change in global perspective : principles for re-making our cities

Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

Abstract

Cities have always been important to processes of globalization and global change, past and present. Cities were the loci of empires, at least going back to the period when the Romans declared urbis et orbis — the City of Rome and the Orb of the World are one. In the sixteenth century the City of Seville witnessed the return of the sailing vessel Victoria, carrying the first humans to circumnavigate the globe. From the nineteenth century to early twentieth century, the City of London was the centre of an empire that colonized more than a quarter of the total land-area of the earth. Following the Spanish Empire’s use of the same epithet, London described itself as the metropole of an empire upon which the sun never set. While some writers give the impression that ‘global cities’ are a twentieth-century phenomenon and the movement of finance capital predominantly defines their global status, the globalization of all cities has been intensifying across a very long history. Nevertheless, while globalization and urbanization have been intertwined for centuries, there are a number of changes that suggest a qualitative shift across the last four or five decades.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationGlobalization, Modernity and Urban Change in Asian Cities
EditorsPham Quang Minh, Van Suu Nguyen, Ien Ang, Gay Hawkins
Place of PublicationVietnam
PublisherKnowledge Publishing House
Pages27-41
Number of pages15
ISBN (Print)9786049433924
Publication statusPublished - 2016

Keywords

  • globalization
  • cities and towns
  • urbanization
  • social life and customs
  • Asia

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