The Global City There is a general acceptance that some cities are more advanced than others which has led to 'global cities' History of the terms world and global city . Sir Patrick Geddes (theorist and urban planner) used the term 'world city' in his book Cities and Evolution (1915, Chapter 3) . He described cities he'd been to, particularly Europe and US and how global the culture, population, architecture and food are . Peter Hall (1966) saw cities as places that controlled the geography of economic activity - called them 'world cities', economic life of the world is concentrated in a few major information centres - noticing there's a handful of cities that are more influential . He emphasised the role of political power · Immanuel Wallerstein (1974) 'The modern world system l' - idea as a world system as a social system with boundaries, member groups, rules of legitimation and coherence . This is the idea of countries as core, periphery and semi-periphery (cheap labour and raw materials vs high profit consumption goods), illustrating the idea of hierarchy at a national perspective · World itself is unequal with countries systematically depressing other countries but this has led a change of thinking to the global city . Cities are the centre of systemic activity and economic activity · World cities occupy the core and semi-periphery and therefore control the 'system' (Friedmann and Wolff 1982) · Couples with hyper-globalist thinkers (e.g. Ohmae 1995 - 'global village') cities, not nations, are beginning to be the focus of capitalist expansion . Hennan (1977) was one of the first to term the idea of a 'global city' that is distinct from a 'world city' - globalisation is creating a need for global cities · Global cities are different from world cities because they are a systemic requirement - capitalist expansion as cities are systemic nodes in the process (e.g. analysis of economic expansion on London not England) · Cities serve as international business centres for business decision making (Cohen 1981) . London is both world city (cosmopolitan) and global city (finance) Global cities - economic · Sassen (1991,2001) book called 'The Global City: London, New York and Tokyo' · Companies that make things we consume (Nike/apple) are not the focus here, it is the accountancy firms who serve these brands · The service firms (APS) - law, management consultancy, finance, insurance and advertising are the lubricant of the city · Created a hierarchy and comparative nature to urban theory as all these big companies do the controlling and commanding of the world economy - its these companies as a cluster or agglomeration that create what we consider to be a city
. A small part of the city is controlling the economy based on the cluster of financial companies and make decision and decide where people are working, hyper local in location but global in influence · Sassen says cities act as centres of finance and as centres of global servicing management ·