The name is absent

in the Pacific Rim have shown significant progress since the 1970s - mostly as a
result of the world-wide shift in post-Fordist manufacturing. In recent years,
however, more DFI has been flowing from developed countries to developing
countries nearby them than before. In the process, countries in the Pacific Rim are
now becoming stronger spatio-economically associated with Japan, Central Europe
with Western Europe, and Central America with the USA. Mega cities in the Pacific
Rim that form part of the ‘flying geese’, manage to attract industries that are no longer
viable in the South East Asian urban core (Marcotullio, 2001), while cities such as
Mexico and those to the north of it benefited significantly from NAFTA. Cities in the
global outer periphery has been lagging behind ever since.

Table 3 Size of the economies of global regions

(World Bank, 2000)

For this reason the mega cities of the South play significantly different roles as
global players compared to mega cities in the North. Global and world cities in the
North serve as apexes in the networks of urban systems in the globalizing economy,
while cities in the South are facing significant disadvantages. The distinguishing
trademark of global cities is their ability to attract skilled labour and high value-added
activities with a global reach. They are globally recognised nodes of creative
thinking, innovation, information, fashion and culture, which provide specialized
expertise and services and house multinational companies and substantial sources of
investment capital. They act as the ‘command and control centres’ of the global
economy (Sassen 1991; 1997; Knox, 1994; Beaverstock, et al., 1999). Despite
attempts to find a more comprehensive theoretical framework for the understanding of
the concept of global cities, such as understanding it in the context of larger networks
of globalized urban centres (Smith and Timberlake, 1995; Jones, 2002, Geyer, 1998)
global cities continue to be distinguished from other centres in terms of the number of
command and control functions that are located in them. As a consequence, mega
cities in the South and North are often analysed on equal terms.

There are several reasons why this approach to mega city research is inappropriate
for mega city analysis in the South (Geyer, 2003). One is the fact that the spotlight

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