Chapter 4

World City - term coined by Patrick Geddes to describe cities in which a disproportionate share of the world's most important business(economic, political, cultural) is conducted and that serve as headquarters to transitional corporations


Check out the following site for more info:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city


Top World Cities

• London, England
  

• New York, New York, USA
  

• Tokyo, Japan

Distinctive Features of World Cities Include:

• Increasing control over the production and transmission of news, information and culture


• Marked economic and social polarization and intense spation segregtion involving:

~a growing international elite, dominated by a transnational producer-service group

~pronounced inner city gentrification and redevelopment for luxury use

~a large informal economy

~a large and growing group of multiply disadvantaged people

• Massive concentrations of new immigrant groups


• Heightened political conflict over issues of urban growth and management and intensified race and class conflict
  

Regional Control Centers - large concentrations of national and regional headquarters of large corporations, well-developed banking facilities, dense networks of producer-service companies and concentrations of important educational, medical and public-sector institutions.

Examples of these places include:

• Atlanta

• Boston









• Houston

Specialized Producer-Service Centers - third-tier of cities, specialized producer-service centers tend to be more narrowly defined while they depend on world cities and nodal centers for high-order producer services suc as banking and advertising. They are specialized in management and technical production.

Examples of this type of city include:

• San Jose
• Detroit
• Pittsburgh

Dependent Centers - fourth tier of cities, small and dependent. The fortunes of these cities depend on decisions made regionally, nationally and globally.

These centers can be identified by 4 subcategories:

1. Traditional manufacturing centers...Buffalo, Chattanooga, Erie
2. Industrial /military centers...Huntsville, Newport News, San Diego
3. Mining/industrial centers.....Duluth, Charleston
4. Resort/retirement/residential centers...Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Las Vegas