Michael Timberlake

World Cities in Asia: Cliques, Centrality and Connectedness

The worlds leading cities are linked to one another by the flow of commodities, information and people to form part of the fabric of the world system. They are linked hierarchically, with some cities occupying more prominent positions than others in this global network of urban places. While this network is relatively stable, it is not immutable. The late 20th century saw deindustrialisation in the core countries, the shift of industries towards less developed countries, economic boom (and bust) in several developing countries and rapidly increasing global interdependence. Accompanying these changes has been the dramatic rise of several Asian cities in the hierarchical global system of urban places. This research describes the changing place of Asian cities in the world system of cities by using formal network analytical techniques with data on airline travel between all pairs of about 100 world cities from 1975 to 1997.

Economic Globalisation and the Structure of the World City System: The Case of Airline Passenger Data

This paper reports results from an analysis of the relationship between the structure of the city-to-city network of global airline passenger flows and the interstate world system. While many scholars suggest that the broader parameters of the world system structure the urban hierarchy embedded within or articulated to it, others argue that the urban hierarchy is decoupling from the world system. The analyses show that there has been some modest convergence in the distribution of power in the world city system. Moreover, they suggest that the mechanism for this convergence is the upward mobility of cities located in the semi-periphery and the east Asian region. The paper closes by considering the implication of these findings for a larger understanding of the relationship between globalisation, the structure of the world city system and its articulation with the world system.

World City Typologies and National City System Deterritorialisation: USA, China and Japan:

The research constitutes the first effort to test the claim found in the world city theoretical literature that, as world cities strengthen ties with each other, their linkages with their countries’ hinterlands and national urban systems will weaken. This research offers a more nuanced exploration of this hypothesis by taking into account variation in the nature of the state across countries in which world cities are located as well as the source of global capital in the world cities. Specifically, the research reported here suggests that three types of world cities—market-centred bourgeois world cities (MWC), state-centred political bureaucratic world cities (SWC) and dual-role world cities (DWC)—entail different deterritorialisation outcomes. Three countries that have prototypical global cities—Japan (SWC), China (DWC) and the US (MWC) are compared, applying longitudinal network modelling to relational data on national city networks. From 1993 to 2007, more globally connected MWCs weakened their national ties. In contrast, higher global status has no significant effect on the integration of SWCs or DWCs with their national urban systems. This indicates that the type of state, but not the source of capital, conditions whether the world city will deterritorialise vis-à-vis its national city system.

Urbanization in the World-Economy.

Introduction: M. Timberlake, The World-System Perspective and Urbanization. Theoretical and Conceptual Considerations: J. Kentor, Economic Development and the World Division of Labor. J. Sokolovsky, Logic, Space, and Time: The Boundaries of the Capitalist World-Economy. A. Portes, The Informal Sector and the World-Economy: Notes on the Structure of Subsidized Labor. P. Barnhouse Walters, Systems of Cities and Urban Primacy: Problems of Definition and Measurement. C.A. Smith, Theories and Measures of Urban Primacy: A Critique. Regional Implications: C.A. Smith, Class Relations and Urbanization in Guatemala: Toward an Alternative Theory of Urban Primacy. R. Clark, Urban Primacy and Incorporation into the World-Economy: The Case of Australia, 1850-1900. R.J. Nemeth and D.A. Smith, The Political Economy of Contrasting Urban Hierarchies in South Korea and the Philippines. B. London, Thai City--Hinterland Relationships in an International Context: Development as Social Control in Northern Thailand. S. Sassen-Koob, Capital Mobility and Labor Migration: Their Expression in Core Cities. Global Patterns: C.K. Chase-Dunn, The System of World Cities, A.D. 800-1975. G. Firebaugh, Core--Periphery Patterns of Urbanization. K.B. Ward, Women and Urbanization in the World-System. M. Timberlake and J. Lunday, Labor Force Structure in the Zones of the World-Economy, 1950-1970. References. Index.

Korea’s Global City Structural and Political Implications of Seoul’s Ascendance in the Global Urban Hierarchy

Seoul, South Korea has risen remarkably in the global hierarchy of cities since the mid-1970s, and arguably it is now among an elite group of about 15 of the most globally central cities in the world. While it is increasingly the object of urban studies research, few efforts have specifically focused on linking social structural changes within the city to its increasingly intense participation in the global economy. The globalization and world cities perspective suggests that as cities achieve global prominence, they should experience certain social structural transformations, some of which are problematic, such as increasing polarization and marginalization. But critics of this view argue that the ‘globalizationists’ ignore the role of the state, which, to them, has a more profound influence over urban transformations. This article surveys some of the research and data on Seoul’s recent social transformation and compares these changes to the expectations of the globalization perspective and to the counter-argument that state policies are more important. We also discuss the likelihood that the Korean capital will improve or even maintain its prominence in the world-systems city system.

Testing a Global City Hypothesis: An Assessment of Polarization across US Cities

Social polarization is perhaps most evident within the worlds large cities where we can easily observe stark contrasts between wealth and poverty. A “world city” theoretical perspective has emerged that associates large cities’ importance in a global network of cities to the degree of internal polarization within these cities. The research reported here locates 57 large US cities within this world city hierarchy and then empirically examines the hypothesized positive association between global centrality and social polarization using a multivariate, cross–city analysis. The findings are mixed, with some evidence that global centrality increases income polarization, but only in the context of higher levels of immigration. There is no evidence that a citys centrality affects occupational polarization. We conclude by suggesting implications for the world city literature and future research.

Are world cities also world immigrant cities? An international, cross-city analysis of global centrality and immigration

Systematic research on world cities neglects immigration, despite its significance to world city formation. In this article, we test a foundational, but untested, premise of world cities research: that global centrality in the world urban system is associated with larger, more diverse immigrant populations. Using an international sample of cities, we conduct multivariate regressions of Benton-Short et al.’s Urban Immigrant Index on the Globalization and World City Network measure of advanced producer service firm centrality and two other measures of global urban centrality, controlling for competing explanations of international migration. Our findings reveal that cities that are more central to the network of advanced producer service firms have larger, more diverse immigrant populations than less-central cities. World cities are thus not only key sites for corporate control of the world economy, but they are also central in international flows of immigrant labor, as Sassen hypothesized nearly 30 years ago.