A Tale of World Cities

Cities like New York, London, Paris and Tokyo, at the top of the hierarchy, and others like Chicago, Dusseldorf, Los Angles, Madrid, Montreal, Munich, Rome, Toronto, Washington, Zurich and a few others have been labeled as world cities. This is because they are the nodal points that function as control centers for the interdependent skein of material, financial and cultural flows, which together, support and sustain the globalization process. Some of the cities of developing nations like Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Singapore, Shanghai and Seoul are already occupying important positions in this global hierarchy of cities.

In India, cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad are trying to outdo one another in order to claim positions in the global network. Mumbai is supposedly the financial capital of India, with Nariman Point, Cuffe Parade, Worli and Fort areas acting as the hub, where most of the financial and producer services are located. Newspapers are regularly replete with controversies about a plethora of proposed commercial and developmental projects. Similarly, India's 'Silicon Valley’, Bangalore, is poised for take-off with projects for modernization, promotion of four satellite cities, and the plan for an expressway. In Hyderabad, the present chief minister has changed the trajectory of growth of the city by building what is known as the 'Hi-tech city' or 'Cyberabad'. It offers various infrastructural facilities to the info-tech industry.

What implications do all these developments have for the planning of the metropolitan cities of India? One group of scholars and urban planners opine that globalization has changed radically, the concept of planned growth of cities. They feel that the power of national governments has been considerably eroded by the global nature of economic activities. Governments are obliged to entrust decisive influence over the employment, incomes and welfare of the population, to external forces and global markets — the outcome of which can neither be predicted nor determined. As Nigel Harris (Professor Emeritus of Economics, University College, London) states, globalization has led to the liberation of cities, and has restored the local at the cost of the national. Cities, he feels, ought to be characterized by a constant activity of reinventing itself, expelling some activities that no longer need the incubator atmosphere, and drawing in others that do. However, the dominance exerted by the national state contravenes the essence of a city. Thus, a 20-year Master Plan assuming the predetermination of the future is an attempt to thwart the essence of a city's contribution to the world — that of continual self-transformation.

Of Metropolitan Spaces

Manuel Castell (Professor of Sociology, University of California) has theoretically differentiated between the space of flows and the space of places in the metropolitan environment. The former — created by the information technology revolution — is of several layers, comprising the circuit of electronic impulses, its nodes and hubs, and the spatial organization of the dominant managerial elites. These elites live as segregated communities on 'spaces', with easy access to cosmopolitan complexes of arts, culture and entertainment. Important elements of the space of flows are the creation of a lifestyle and spatial design aimed at unifying the symbolic environment of the elite around the world. Such elements supersede the historical peculiarities of each locale. Thus, offices of MNCs, international hotel rooms, airport VIP lounges, express highways and the like seem similar across the world, and create a sense of familiarity with the inner world of the space of flows.....more on next page

Home | Top | Next | Back