falls mainly on the impact of the global reach of technologically sophisticated
multinationals, the number of Furtune 500-firms located in mega cities, and the
amount of FDI that is attracted by them. In the process a wide range of issues related
to the impact of globalization on layers of less economic sophistication in such cities
tends to be blurred out. An economic picture is portrayed in which the ‘techno-
literati’ of the world (Golding, 1996) take centre-stage in an exclusive economic
environment, while a large percentage of the ‘techno-illiterati’ that live in the
‘information-ghettos’ of the world (cities) is being marginalized. Globalisation not
only impacts directly on the survival of the lagging economies of the inner and outer
peripheral regions of the world, it also impacts directly on the marginal sector inside
mega cities (Friedmann and Wolff, 1982; Graham, 1999; Graham and Marvin, 1996;
Warf, 2000; Geyer, 2002). Just as the global competitiveness of global core regions
leads to an increase in global underdevelopment in certain global peripheral regions at
the macro scale, globalisation also tends to cause an increase in inequality and
polarization at the micro urban scale, both in the developed and developing world.
According to Sassen (1991) it causes a middle-classlessness in those societies, the
proliferation of highly skilled professions followed by the ‘casualization’ and
‘informalization’ of a wide range of other economic activities. This leads to
hourglass-shaped urban economies in the North (Hamnett, 1996) and pear-shaped
mega city economies in the South.
Considering differences in the cityness of cities in advanced countries in the West
compared to those in advanced and developing countries outside the West, the
question should be asked how universally acceptable the application of Western
definitions of cities are outside the West (King, 1997; Robinson, 2002). Based upon
this, the question could further be asked how applicable global city rosters are when
they are compiled in terms of narrowly selected ranges of criteria. Linked to this,
difficulties arise when global city rosters are compiled while disregarding the fact that
global cities in advanced countries are by and large embedded in larger core regions
of equal if not greater cumulative global significance. These cities and extensive
urbanised regions around them have become spatially integrated to such an extent,
that, what holds true for individual global cities in terms of capital accumulation and
access to markets and resources globally, also holds true for the urban networks
around them. In contrast, stand-alone mega cities (some of them emerging global
cities) in developing countries are often embedded in economically less developed
areas with comparatively scarce infrastructure and skilled labour (Geyer, 1998).
These areas are unable to provide significant support to the modern economic
activities that are clustered in the mega cities. As a result they cause a steep decline in
global significance with increasing distance from the apex of such emerging global
cities in contrast to global cities in global core regions that enjoy significant economic
support from associated urban agglomerations in their vicinity.
From an international development perspective, core regions in the North are not
the only areas that are advantaged by international economic forces of cumulative
causation. Emerging global cities in the South present similar advantages to
prospective multi-national developers, albeit at lower levels of intensity and scale than
those in the North. They serve as popular FDI destinations with agglomeration
advantages far outstripping those of other areas in their vicinity. Serving as gateways
to large economically less developed regions in the developing world, certain
strategically located cities in the South have already become nodes of global