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Running Head: META-THEME PAPER 1

META-THEME PAPER 2

Meta-Theme Paper

PAD 3800 Managing Global Cities

Maria C Daza

Panther ID: 6120313

Module Discussion Abrahamson, Sivam and Banister

“At one extreme, a city might be at the literal and figurative center of its nation, ecologically, economically, politically, and so on. At the opposite extreme, a city might be of little significance to its nation” (Abrahamson, 2004, p.71).

The value that is given to different cities in countries around the world differs and presents inequalities. As in Abrahamson’s above text, most of the major cities, especially the capital cities worldwide, are economic hubs and receive more outside funding and investments. Abrahamson (2004) found some capital cities have their population and opportunities ranked over five to ten times those of the second-largest city in the same country, thus showing a significant aspect of inequalities worldwide in the way cities are treated. These inequalities are reflected in the population: Santiago, Chile, whose population is over ten times that of the second-largest city in the country.

The aspect of inequalities in the cities can be seen in how different classes of people occupy the different areas of the city. “Delhi’s informal housing is a reflection of a poor and inappropriate urban planning system, with a lack of public investment and restriction in the formal land and housing market” (Sivam, 2003, p.135). This point by Sivam is used to illustrate the aspect of inequalities in city occupations and developments. Delhi is a slum area and the pathetic conditions, as Sivam (2003) wrote, result from low investments in infrastructure and housing the lack of government planning. Lower class citizens in Delhi occupies the slums. Delhi is divided into zones in terms of the each of the individual occupants’ income levels. This, there is a living area for the low class, middle class and the high-class level of citizens, showing that the cities are critically unequal in living standards. The cost of living in the high-class areas cannot accommodate the people in the low class, and the people in the high-class levels have more allocations for development compared to those living in the low-class slum areas.

The aspect of inequality is further illustrated in the case of Dharavi slums. “Cramped living conditions, coupled with the scarcity of clean water and unhygienic sanitation facilities, made Dharavi an extremely challenging place to live.” (Iyer, 2011, p.3). The status of a city is mostly placed on a high level, in terms of infrastructure, access to clean water and hygiene, and general conditions of living. However, this is not the same in some parts of these cities. As shown in the case of Dharavi, it was hard to access clean water and sanitation and high standards of hygiene. The status of the different city areas is thus unequal.

Inequalities are also experienced in the way people are treated in the different cities. Some people appear to be more considered in development and projects in some of the cases compared to the others. The welfare of some of the people seems to be much important than that of others. This can be illustrated using the Barnsbury case in London.

“The value gap became important in Barnsbury in the late 1950s and especially the 1960s; landlords were getting a decreasing return on their rented property whilst developers were realizing capital gains by buying up rented property, evicting the tenants and selling it in a vacant state” (Butler, 2006, p.473).

The people are being evicted from their houses to create space for other tenants who can pay higher rents. Since the current tenants are of the low class, their lives do not seem to matter as those of the middle class and those of the landlords who need to make more money.

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Global Influence and Local Control

The development of the different cities worldwide may be controlled by outside influences and actualized by the local control. Global development in some way dictates the way the developing cities are structured. “Urban development in Shanghai has typified the process of decentralization and highlights the dynamics of land market reform and concentration of foreign investment.” (Wu, 2011, p.512). The emergence of new office and commercial landscapes in Shanghai, China, was prompted by the international market rising need. However, developing these landscapes was vested on the local governments, below the municipal level, as and they were required to spend their capital to bring up these landscapes to match the standards that the international market was dictating for the city. The influence of other cities around the world that matched Shanghai’s standards made it necessary to have the new landscapes.

The aspect of global influence in the cities and prompting of local control can also be illustrated by Abrahamson (2004) in his statement “The small group of nations (and cities within them) that house the multinational corporations are highly advantaged because extremely large amounts of capital flow to the headquarters nations” (81). The multinational corporations fund many projects in these cities as part of their CSR and the need to be in well-developed structures and cities. The funding thus goes a large extend in influencing the development of the cities. Also, these international corporations have a lot of influence on decision making in these developing cities and this makes development easier and faster, based on the experience the corporations have working in different cities with same or different statuses.

Pisano and Adams (2009) illustrate global influence and local control in their statement, “However, following a recent trend in the apparel business, VF was creating its own, single brand stores as well as expanding its web-based retailing” (2). This statement shows how VF brands’ global competitors influenced the decision-making process of VF in order to remain competitive. At the local level, VF brands management had to make a decision based on their competitors in the global market to avoid being left behind. The international market influences the development and the local controls implement it.

The other case which can be used to illustrate this is the case of Dharavi slums by Iyer, Macomber and Arora (2011). In one of the statements “The situation was further complicated by political and global factors. Elections were scheduled in 2009 for the state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai was located” (2). Dharavi slum is one of the slums which has over time proven to be hard to develop as a result of different influences. The global market mainly looks closely at the areas with potential of development and where they also stand to gain from influencing development. This was not the case in Dharavi as the process had been tried many times with no achievements being made. As a result, the support of the global stakeholders to the local control was limited.

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References

Abrahamson, M. (2004). Global cities (pp. 1-23). New York: Oxford University Press.

Butler, T., & Lees, L. (2006). Super‐gentrification in Barnsbury, London: globalization and gentrifying global elites at the neighborhood level. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 31(4), 467-487.

Iyer, L., Macomber, J., & Arora, N. (2009). Dhārāvi: Developing Asia’s Largest Slum (A). Harvard Bus. Sch.

Pisano, G. P., & Adams, P. (2009). VF Brands: Global Supply Chain Strategy.

Sivam, A. (2003). Housing supply in Delhi. Cities, 20(2), 135-141.

Wu, J. (2011). Globalization and emerging office and commercial landscapes in Shanghai. Urban geography, 32(4), 511-530.