Global Networks, Linked Cities (Paperback)

~ Saskia Sassen (Editor) "The role that communication and information technologies can play in affecting economic outcomes is now widely recognized..." (more)
Key Phrases: Hong Kong, Mexico City, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Reimagining cities as nodes of an immense network of commercial and political transactions, sociologist Saskia Sassen has transformed Information Age geography. Global Networks, Linked Cities collects research, theory, and case studies examining cities in this context by Sassen and 19 other social scientists, focusing particularly on the recent explosive growth in areas formerly--now inaccurately--called the Third World.

The jargon in Global Networks, Linked Cities can be fairly dense and the style arid, but the essays reward patient readers with insight into the interlinked worlds of finance, geography, communications, and geopolitics. Most of the pieces look closely at individual urban regions: Shanghai, Buenos Aires, and, interestingly, Beirut. All have much to tell us about the organic urban development coevolving with globalized commerce and communications, says editor Sassen. As barriers to free information flow erode, we see mergers between political, business, and academic entities.Global Networks, Linked Cities shows us how this is happening and how to think about what's coming next. --Rob Lightner

Review

Saskia Sassen's collection is a unique contribution to the emerging literature on global cities and networks: first, because it assembles state-of-the-art presentations by leading researchers in the field, and second, because it gives due attention to key cities in the developing world, which perform vital roles in the new global networks but have hitherto been neglected. No one interested in this central topic of hte new urban geography can afford to miss this book. -- Sir Peter Hall, Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College London, Director of hte Institute of Community Development, and author of Cities in Civilization
In Global Networks, Linked Cities, Saskia Sassen extends her path-breaking work on the first tier global cities to focus on the architecture of the networks in which they are embedded. Networking among major cities is generally taken as a key indicator of involvement in globalization, yet few studies examine what those networks actually consist of. This volume plunges into that examination, and the result is a provocative and rewarding foray into the real content of several central concepts in the contemporary discussion of globalization and urban development. -- Peter Marcuse, Professor of Urban Planning, Columbia University and co-editor of Globalizing Cities: A New Urban Spatial Order? and Of States and Cities: The Partitioning of Urban Space
In Global Networks, Linked Cities, Saskia Sassen extends her path-breaking work on the first tier global cities to focus on the architecture of hte networks in which they are embedded. Networking among major cities is generally taken as a key indicator of involvement in globalization, yet few studies examine what those networks actually consist of. This volume plunges into that examination, and the result is a provocative and rewarding foray into the real content of several central concepts in the contemporary discussion of globalization and urban development. -- Peter Marcuse, Professor of Urban Planning, Columbia University and co-editor of Globalizing Cities: A New Urban Spatial Order? and Of States and Cities: The Partitioning of Urban Space
Saskia Sassen's collection is a unique contribution to the emerging literature on global cities and networks: first, because it assembles state-of-the-art presentations by leading researchers in the field, and second, because it gives due attention to key cities in the developing world, which perform vital roles in the new global networks but have hitherto been neglected. No one interested in the central topic of the new urban geography can afford to miss this book. -- Sir Peter Hall, Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College London, Director of the Institute of Community Development, and author of Cities in Civilization
This edited volume contains United Nations U/Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU/IAS) research projects on contemporary global forces underpinnning urban development. The individual essays study the empirical and theoretical specifications on the organizational architecture of an increasing number of transnational cities, particularly cities of the global South that are mid-range on the global hierarchy... Issues specific to Mexico, the Hormuz Corridor, Sao Paulo, Beirut, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Buenos Aires, and Amsterdam are discussed in the twelve chapters. -- Social Change and Economic Development
...explores the key issue of telematics infrastructure and hints at the important policy question of whether infrastructure must lead clustering of coordination functions or vice versa. -- American Journal of Sociology
This collection is an important contribution to the literature on global cities... And yet the roles these cities play in the global economy are sufficently varied to show that historical development and local cultures also shape the impact of globalization. While this may not have been the intended message of these essays, for those interested... it is a welcome message indeed. -- H-Net
Overall this volume provides a wealth of detail on the various interconnections within and between cities in the global hierarchy.
. -- Journal of Planning Education and Research

Saskia Sassens collection is a unique contribution to the emerging literature on global cities and networks: first, because it assembles state-of-the-art presentations by leading researchers in the field, and second, because it gives due attention to key cities in the developing world, which perform vital roles in the new global networks but have hitherto been neglected. No one interested in this central topic of hte new urban geography can afford to miss this book. -- Sir Peter Hall, Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College London, Director of hte Institute of Community Development, and author of Cities in Civilization
In Global Networks, Linked Cities, Saskia Sassen extends her path-breaking work on the first tier global cities to focus on the architecture of the networks in which they are embedded. Networking among major cities is generally taken as a key indicator of involvement in globalization, yet few studies examine what those networks actually consist of. This volume plunges into that examination, and the result is a provocative and rewarding foray into the real content of several central concepts in the contemporary discussion of globalization and urban development. -- Peter Marcuse, Professor of Urban Planning, Columbia University and co-editor of Globalizing Cities: A New Urban Spatial Order? and Of States and Cities: The Partitioning of Urban Space
In Global Networks, Linked Cities, Saskia Sassen extends her path-breaking work on the first tier global cities to focus on the architecture of hte networks in which they are embedded. Networking among major cities is generally taken as a key indicator of involvement in globalization, yet few studies examine what those networks actually consist of. This volume plunges into that examination, and the result is a provocative and rewarding foray into the real content of several central concepts in the contemporary discussion of globalization and urban development. -- Peter Marcuse, Professor of Urban Planning, Columbia University and co-editor of Globalizing Cities: A New Urban Spatial Order? and Of States and Cities: The Partitioning of Urban Space
Saskia Sassens collection is a unique contribution to the emerging literature on global cities and networks: first, because it assembles state-of-the-art presentations by leading researchers in the field, and second, because it gives due attention to key cities in the developing world, which perform vital roles in the new global networks but have hitherto been neglected. No one interested in the central topic of the new urban geography can afford to miss this book. -- Sir Peter Hall, Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College London, Director of the Institute of Community Development, and author of Cities in Civilization
This edited volume contains United Nations U/Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU/IAS) research projects on contemporary global forces underpinnning urban development. The individual essays study the empirical and theoretical specifications on the organizational architecture of an increasing number of transnational cities, particularly cities of the global South that are mid-range on the global hierarchy... Issues specific to Mexico, the Hormuz Corridor, Sao Paulo, Beirut, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Buenos Aires, and Amsterdam are discussed in the twelve chapters. -- Social Change and Economic Development
...explores the key issue of telematics infrastructure and hints at the important policy question of whether infrastructure must lead clustering of coordination functions or vice versa. -- American Journal of Sociology
This collection is an important contribution to the literature on global cities... And yet the roles these cities play in the global economy are sufficently varied to show that historical development and local cultures also shape the impact of globalization. While this may not have been the intended message of these essays, for those interested... it is a welcome message indeed. -- H-Net
Overall this volume provides a wealth of detail on the various interconnections within and between cities in the global hierarchy.
. -- Journal of Planning Education and Research

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Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1st edition (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415931630
• ISBN-13: 978-0415931632
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #483,296 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Outsourcing, in a broader context, May 9, 2004

By	W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

With the ever decreasing fall in the cost of communication, both digital and analog, this book speculates that a new global phenomenon may be emerging. A few years ago, during the height of the dot com boom, others suggested that the Web might give rise to the disaggregation of cities or cultural hubs, because cheap communications might let creative individuals work from virtually anywhere with a fast bandwidth connection to the Internet.

But as many major cities in developing countries achieve this thick connection, another possibility emerges, as suggested by this book. It is now possible for some of these cities to parlay this connection and a well educated workforce into a globally prominent role. In part by assuming some of the functionality hitherto almost exclusively taken by first world cities. Think for example on how Silicon Valley is outsourcing some of its work to Mumbai or Bangalore.

The book's suggestions of future global cities is intriguing. Though when they suggest this of Hong Kong, one might argue that it is already a global city by any reasonable measure of how plugged in it is into the global economy.