Whither the Global City? Confronting a longstanding concept with up-to-date perspectives

Abstract der Sitzung

This session contends that the concept of the Global City has lost some traction in urban and economic geography in the recent past. This might be a result of the subject matter becoming a somehow common phenomenon and could also be due to a certain saturation of related topical areas in the research communities. However, globalisation as a case in point is subject to an intense debate, while more general processes of global urbanisation remain a key focus of urban and economic geographers. What was once applied to major world cities in particular, for example, being control & command-centres of the global economy, has now become relational and ubiquitous: the embeddedness of cities in large-scale economic relationships, networks, and policy circles. Furthermore, according to United Nation’s reporting on urbanisation worldwide, the share of urban population is still increasing across many countries, and so are the related challenges for urban development and policy, such as local planning, housing policy, or adaptation to climate change. This means that understanding contemporary processes of global urbanisation remains highly relevant for geographical research as well.

This is the relatively broad context within which this session is situated. We invite contributions that aim to provide an up-to-date insight into the many facets of the intersection between globalisation and urbanisation. Approaches to this intersection could be economic, concerning the built environment, or could address socio-cultural and political developments. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Global financial centres
• Urbanisation and development
• Urban development and large-scale projects/events
• Urban governance models, also in comparative perspective
• Global urban policy initiatives (such as city diplomacy) and policy mobilities
• Sustainable development as a universal guideline for cities and regions – also for global cities?
• Global cities, multiple crises and resilience (e.g. with respect to issues such as Brexit or COVID-19, the housing crisis, and the like).

This call is directed towards an international audience, therefore abstract submissions and paper presentations are expected to be in English.