58316 World Cities and Globalisations

Since 2006 a majority of the world's population lives in cities, key sites for globalisation. Merchants, militias and missionaries, early agents of globalisation, extended their global power and influence from European city-states. Latterly, colonies were ruled from the imperial metropoles and rested on the exercise of colonial urban power. Today, flows of finance, media and products are directed by corporations headquartered in the world's cityscapes and cities house mobile transnational communities, both the global professional elite and the global working classes. The historical waves of globalisation primarily emanate from urban societies. Today the key flows and networks of globalisation are trans-urban, linking societies into metropolitan nodes and hierarchies, constituting a world of cities that increasingly pattern the world of states. The subject addresses these trans-urban dynamics, exploring their dialogues and exchanges and their physical, social and political impacts on the landscapes of contemporary world cities.