During the last decade, research on global cities has exploded throughout the social sciences. It has now become one of the most exciting, if controversial approaches to the study of urban life today.
Fifty generous selections, including contributions from John Friedmann, Michael Peter Smith, Saskia Sassen, Peter Taylor, Manuel Castells, and Anthony King, explore the interrelationships between cities and globalization. The seven sections with accompanying editorial introductions guide the student through the key theoretical, methodological, and empirical debates.
The Global Cities Reader explores the major foundations and intellectual influences of research on globalized urbanization. Classic and contemporary case studies of globalizing cities from Europe, North America and East Asia as well as from emerging world city regions of the global South are presented. The political and cultural dimensions of global city formation are examined in separate sections. The reader concludes by examining the refinement and critique of global cities research in the last fifteen years.