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Impacts of Information Technologies on Urban Economies and Politics*

SASKIA SASSEN

Economic globalization and telecommunications have contributed to produce a spatiality for the urban which pivots on de-territorialized cross-border networks and territorial locations with massive concentrations of resources. This is not a completely new feature. Over the centuries cities have been at the intersection of processes with supra-urban and even intercontinental scalings. What is different today is the intensity, complexity and global span of these networks, and the extent to which significant portions of economies are now dematerialized and digitalized and hence can travel at great speeds through these networks. Also new is the growing use of digital networks by often poor neighborhood organizations to pursue a variety of both intra-urban and interurban political initiatives. All of this has raised the number of cities that are part of cross-border networks operating at often vast geographic scales. Under these conditions, much of what we experience and represent as the local turns out to be a micro-environment with global span.

The new urban spatiality thus produced is partial in a double sense: it accounts for only part of what happens in cities and what cities are about, and it inhabits only part of what we might think of as the space of the city, whether this be understood in terms as diverse as those of a city’s administrative boundaries or in the sense of the multiple public imaginaries that may be present in different sectors of a city’s people.1

Below I unpack some of the elements that condition this complex pivoting on cross- border networks and territorial localizations, focusing particularly on the urban economy and on the new types of place-centered politics of the global that we see emerging.

New interactions between capital fixity and hypermobility

Information technologies have not eliminated the importance of massive concentrations of material resources but have, rather, reconfigured the interaction of capital fixity and hypermobility. The complex management of this interaction has given some cities a new competitive advantage. The vast new economic topography that is being implemented through electronic space is one moment, one fragment, of an even vaster economic chain that is in good part embedded in non-electronic spaces. There is today no fully virtualized firm or economic sector. Even finance, the most digitalized, dematerialized and

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* This article is based on the author’s updated edition ofThe global city(2001b).

1 There is by now an enormous literature on the various aspects and implications of these and other new developments which it is impossible to cite in such a short piece. See, e.g., Corbridgeet al. (1994), Castells (1996), Allen et al. (1999), Low (1999), Marcuse and van Kempen (2000), Yeung (2000).

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research Volume 25.2 June 2001

globalizedof all activities hasa topographythat weavesback and forth betweenactual anddigital space.2 To different extentsin different typesof sectorsanddifferent typesof firms, a firm’s tasksnow are distributedacrossthesetwo kinds of spaces;further, the actualconfigurationsaresubjectto considerabletransformationastasksarecomputerized or standardized,marketsare further globalizedand so on.

Let me selectthe following threeissuesfor discussion.

The importanceof social connectivityand central functions First, while the new telecommunicationstechnologiesdo indeed facilitate geographic dispersalof economicactivitieswithout losing systemintegration,they havealsohadthe effect of strengtheningthe importanceof central coordinationand control functionsfor firms and for markets.Major centershave massiveconcentrationsof state-of-the-art resourcesthat allow themto maximizethe benefitsof telecommunicationsandto govern the new conditionsfor operatingglobally. Even electronicmarketsrely on tradersand bankswhich arelocatedsomewhere;for instance,Frankfurt’selectronicfuturesmarketis actually embeddedin a global network of financial centers,eachof which concentrates resourcesthat are necessaryfor Frankfurt’s marketto thrive.

OnepropositionI derivefrom this mix of variablesis that organizationalcomplexity is a key condition necessaryfor a firm or marketto maximizethe benefitsit can derive from the new informationtechnologies.It is not enoughto havethe infrastructure.It also takesa mix of other resources:state-of-the-artmaterial and humanresources,and the social networks that maximize connectivity. Much of the value added by these technologiesfor advancedservicefirms and advancedmarketsrepresentsa new type of urbanizationeconomy insofar as it dependson conditions external to the firms and marketsthemselvesand to the technologiesas such.

A second fact that is emerging with greater clarity concerns the meaning of ‘information’. Thereare two typesof information that matterto advancedservicesfirms. One is the datum, which may be complex but comes in the form of standardized information easilyavailableto thesefirms: e.g.the detailsof a privatization in a particular country. The secondtype of information is far more diffi cult to obtain becauseit is not standardized.It requires interpretation/evaluation/judgment.It entailsnegotiatinga series of dataand a seriesof interpretations of a mix of datain the hopeof producinga higher order type of information. Accessto the first kind of information is now global and immediate thanksto the digital revolution. But it is the second type of information that requiresa complicatedmixture of elements, not only technicalbut alsosocial — what we could think of as the social infrastructurefor global connectivity. It is this type of social infrastructurewhich gives majorfinancialcentersa strategicrole.In principle,thetechnical infrastructurefor connectivity canbereproducedanywhere,but not thesocialconnectivity.

Whenthe morecomplexforms of informationneededto executemajor international dealscannotbe obtainedfrom existing databases,no matterwhat onecanpay, thenone needs the social information loop and the associatedde facto interpretationsand inferencesthat come with bouncingoff information amongtalented,informed people.3

The processof making inferences/interpretations into ‘information’ takesquite a mix of talentsand resources.4

2 Anotherangleinto theseissuescameout of the annualAspenRoundtableon ElectronicCommerce(1998), that bringstogetherthe CEOsof the main softwareandhardwarefirms aswell asthe key venturecapitalists in thesector;the overall senseof theseinsiderswasoneof considerablelimits to themediumandthat it will not simply replaceother typesof marketsbut ratherproducenew kinds of complementarities.

3 It is the importancefor firms andmarketsof this complextype of ‘information’ that hasgiven a whole new importanceto credit-ratingagencies,for instance.Partof theratinghasto do with interpretingandinferring. When this interpretingbecomes‘authoritative’, it becomes‘information’ availableto all.

4 Risk management,for example,which hasbecomecrucial with globalizationdueto thegrowingcomplexity anduncertaintythat comeswith operating in multiple countriesandmarkets,requiresenormousfine tuning

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In brief, urbancentersprovidethe mix of resourcesandthe socialconnectivitywhich allow a firm or marketto maximizethe benefitsof its technicalconnectivity.

The spatialitiesof the center The combinationof the new capabilitiesfor mobility alongwith patternsof concentration andoperationalfeaturesof the cutting-edgesectorsof advancedeconomiessuggeststhat spatial concentrationremains a key feature of these sectors.But it is not simply a continuationof older patternsof spatialconcentration.Todaythereis no longera simple straightforward relationbetweencentralityandsuchgeographicentitiesasthe downtown, or the central businessdistrict (CBD). In the past, and up to quite recently in fact, centrality was synonymouswith the downtownor the CBD. The new technologiesand organizationalforms havealteredthe spatialcorrelatesof centrality.5

Information technologieshave had a sharp effect on the spatial organizationof economicactivity. But this effect is not uniform: the locational options of firms vary considerably.It is not simply a matter of reducingthe weight of place. The scattered evidencefor the last decade,which saw the widespreaduseof information technologies by firms in a broadrangeof sectors,allows us to identify threetypesof firms in termsof their locational patterns.First, firms with highly standardizedproducts/servicesseean increasein their locational options insofar as they can maintain systemintegrationno matterwherethey are located.This might also hold for firms with specializedproducts/ services that do not require elaborate contracting and subcontractingor suppliers networks,all conditionswhich tendto makean urbanlocationmoreefficient. Dataentry andsimplemanufacturingwork canbe movedto whereverlabor andothercostsmight be lowest. Headquarterscan move out of large cities and to suburbanlocations or small towns.

A secondlocationalpatternis that representedby firms which aredeeplyinvolved in the global economy and hence have increasingly complex headquarters’functions. Perhapsironically, the complexity of headquarters’functions is such that they get outsourcedto highly specializedservicefirms. This frees up the headquartersto locate anywhereso long as they can accessa highly specializednetworked service sector somewhere,most likely in a city. The third locational patternis that evident in highly specializednetworkedservicesectors.It is thesesectors,ratherthantheheadquarters,that benefitfrom spatialagglomerationat the point of production.Thesefirms areembedded in intensetransactionswith othersuchfirms in kindredspecializationsandaresubjectto time pressuresand the constraintsof imperfect information discussedin the preceding section.Along with some of the featurescontributing to agglomerationadvantagesin financial servicesfirms, this hasthe effect of renderingthe networkof specializedservice firms more place-bound than the hypermobility of their products and of their professionalswould indicate.

Given the differential impactsof the capabilitiesof the new informationtechnologies on specific types of firms and of sectorsof the economy,the spatial correlatesof the ‘center’ canassumeseveralgeographicforms,likely to beoperatingsimultaneouslyat the macro-level.Thus,the centercanbe the CBD, asit still largely is for someof the leading

of centraloperations.We now know that many,if not most,major tradinglossesunrelatedto financial crises over the last decadehave involved human error or fraud. The quality of risk managementwill depend heavily on the top people in a firm rather than simply on technical conditions, such as electronic surveillance.Consolidatingrisk managementoperationsin one site, usually a central one for the firm, is now seengenerallyas more effective. We have seenthis in the caseof severalmajor banks:Chaseand Morgan StanleyDeanWitterin the US, DeutscheBank and Credit Suissein Europe.

5 Severalof the organizinghypothesesin the global-city model concernthe conditionsfor the continuity of centrality in advancedeconomicsystemsin the face of major new organizationalforms and technologies thatmaximizethepossibilityfor geographicdispersal(seetheintroductionin Sassen,2001b;for a variety of perspectivessee,e.g.,Salomon,1996; Moulaert and Scott, 1997; Landrieuet al., 1998).

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sectors,notablyfinance,or an alternativeform of CBD, suchasSilicon Valley. Yet even asthe CBD in major internationalbusinesscentersremainsa strategicsite for the leading industries, it is one profoundly reconfiguredby technologicaland economic change (Ciccolella and Mignaqui, 2001; Fainstein,2001; Schiffer Ramos,2001). Further,there are often sharpdifferencesin the patternsassumedby this reconfiguringof the central city in different parts of the world, notably as betweenthe United Statesand western Europe(e.g. Kunzmann,1994; Hitz et al., 1995; Veltz, 1996).

Second,the centercan extendinto a metropolitanareain the form of a grid of nodes of intense business activity. One might ask whether a spatial organization characterizedby densestrategicnodesspreadover a broaderregion does, in fact, constitutea new form of organizingthe territory of the ‘center’, ratherthan,as in the more conventional view, an instance of suburbanization or geographicdispersal. Insofarasthesevariousnodesarearticulatedthroughdigital networks,they representa new geographic correlate of the most advancedtype of ‘center’. This is a partly deterritorialized spaceof centrality.6

Third, we areseeingthe formationof a transterritorial‘center’ constitutedvia intense economictransactionsin the networkof global cities.Thesetransactionstakeplacepartly in digital spaceand partly through conventionaltransportand travel. The result is a multiplication of often highly specialized circuits connecting sets of cities. These networksof major internationalbusinesscentersconstitutenew geographiesof centrality. The most powerful of thesenew geographiesof centrality at the global level binds the major internationalfinancial and businesscenters:New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, Frankfurt,Zurich, Amsterdam,Los Angeles,Sydney,Hong Kong, amongothers.But this geographynow also includescities suchas Bangkok,Seoul,Taipei, SaoPaulo,Mexico City. In the caseof a complex landscapesuch as Europe’s, we see, in fact, several geographiesof centrality, one global, otherscontinentaland regional.7

Fourth, new forms of centrality are being constitutedin electronically generated spaces.For instance,strategic componentsof the financial industry operatein such spaces.The relation betweendigital and actual spaceis complex and varies among different typesof economicsectors(seeSassen,2001a;Graham,2001).

What doescontextualitymeanin this setting? Thesenetworkedsub-economiesoperatingpartly in actual spaceand partly in globe- spanningdigital spacecannoteasilybe contextualizedin termsof their surroundings.Nor can the individual firms and markets.The orientation of this type of sub-economyis simultaneously towards itself and towards the global. The intensity of internal transactionsin such a sub-economy(whetherglobal finance or cutting edgehigh-tech sectors)is suchthat it overridesall considerationsof the broaderlocality or urbanarea within which it exists.

On another,larger scale,in my researchon global cities I found ratherclearly that

6 This regionalgrid of nodesrepresents,in my analysis,a reconstitutionof the conceptof region.Further, it shouldnot be confusedwith the suburbanizationof economicactivity. I conceiveof it as a spaceof centrality partly locatedin older socioeconomicgeographies,such as that of the suburbor the larger metropolitan region, yet distinct precisely becauseit is a spaceof centrality. Far from neutralizing geography,the regional grid is likely to be embeddedin conventional forms of communication infrastructure,notably rapid rail and highwaysconnectingto airports.Ironically perhaps,conventional infrastructureis likely to maximize the economicbenefitsderived from telematics.I think this is an importantissuethat hasbeenlost somewhatin discussionsaboutthe neutralizationof geographythrough telematics.For an exception,see Peraldi and Perrin (1996), Landrieu et al. (1998) and Scott et al. (2001).

7 Methodologically, I find it useful to unpack theseintercity transactionsinto the specific, often highly specializedcircuits that connectparticularsetsof cities. For instance,whenexaminingfuturesmarkets, the setof cities includesSaoPauloandKuala Lumpur. Thesetwo cities fall out of the picturewhenexamining the gold market;this market,on the other hand,includesJohannesburgand Sydney.

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thesesub-economiesdevelopa strongerorientationtowardsthe global marketsthan to their hinterlands.Therebythey overridea key propositionin the urbansystemsliterature, to wit, that cities and urbansystemsintegrateand articulatenationalterritory. This may havebeenthe caseduring the period when massmanufacturingand massconsumption were the dominant growth machinesin developedeconomiesand thrived on national scalings of economic processes.Today, the ascendanceof digitalized, globalized, dematerializedsectorssuchasfinancehasdilutedthatarticulationwith thelargernational economy and the immediate hinterland and created world-market oriented sub- economies.

The articulation of these sub-economieswith other zones and sectors in their immediatesociospatialsurroundingsare of a specialsort. There are the various highly pricedservicesthat caterto the workforce,from up-scalerestaurantsandhotelsto luxury shopsand cultural institutions,typically part of the sociospatialorder of thesenew sub- economies.But therearealsovariouslow-pricedservicesthatcaterto thefirms andto the householdsof the workers and which rarely ‘look’ like they are part of the advanced corporateeconomy.Thedemandby firms andhouseholdsfor theseservicesactuallylinks two worlds that we think of as radically distinct. It is particularly a third instancethat concernsme here,the large portionsof the urbansurroundingthat havelittle connection to theseworld-marketorientedsub-economies,even though physically proximate.It is thesethat engendera questionaboutcontextandits meaningwhenit comesto thesesub- economies.

What then is the ‘context’, the local, here? The new networked sub-economy occupiesa strategic geography,partly deterritorialized,that cuts acrossborders and connectsa variety of pointson the globe.It occupiesonly a fraction of its ‘local’ setting; its boundariesare not those of the city where it is partly located, nor those of the ‘neighborhood’. This sub-economyfunctions as an intermediary institutional order betweenthe vastconcentrationof very materialresourcesit needswhenit hits the ground and the fact of its global span or cross-bordergeography.Its interlocutor is not the surrounding,the context,but the fact of the global.

I am not surewhat this tearingawayof the contextandits replacementwith the fact of the global could meanfor urbanpracticeandtheory.The strategicoperationis not the searchfor a connectionwith the ‘surroundings’,the context.It is, rather,installationin a strategiccross-bordergeographyconstitutedthroughmultiple ‘locals’. In the caseof the economy,I seea re-scaling:old hierarchies— local, regional,national,global — do not hold. Goingto thenextscalein termsof sizeis no longerhow integrationis achieved.The local now transactsdirectly with the global — the global installs itself in locals andthe global is itself constitutedthrougha multiplicity of locals.

A politics of placeson global circuits

Digital networks are also contributing to the production of counter-geographies of globalization.As is the casewith global corporatefirms, thesecounter-geographiescan be constitutedat multiple scales.Digital networkscan be usedby political activistsfor global or non-local transactions and they can be used for strengthening local communicationsand transactionsinside a city. Recovering how the new digital technology can serve to support local initiatives and alliances across a city’ s neighborhoods(see,e.g.,Eade,1996;Lovink andRiemens,2001)is extremelyimportant in an agewherethe notion of the local is often seenaslosing groundto global dynamics and actors.

I conceptualizethese‘alternative’ networksas counter-geographiesof globalization becausethey are deeply imbricated with some of the major dynamicsconstitutive of globalizationyet arenot partof theformal apparatusor of theobjectivesof this apparatus:

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the formationof global markets,the intensifyingof transnationalandtranslocalnetworks, the developmentof communication technologieswhich easily escapeconventional surveillancepractices.The strengtheningand, in someof thesecases,the formation of new global circuits areembeddedor madepossibleby the existenceof a global economic systemand its associateddevelopmentof variousinstitutional supportsfor cross-border moneyflows andmarkets.8 Thesecounter-geographies aredynamicandchangingin their locational features.And they include a very broad range of activities, including a proliferation of criminal activities.

Throughthe Internet,local initiatives becomepart of a global network of activism without losing the focuson specificlocal struggles.It enablesa new type of cross-border political activism, one centeredin multiple localities yet intenselyconnecteddigitally. Activists candevelopnetworksfor circulatingnot only information(aboutenvironmental, housing, political issuesetc.) but also political work and strategies.There are many examplesof sucha new type of cross-borderpolitical work. For instance,SPARC,started by andcenteredon women,beganasaneffort to organizeslumdwellersin Bombayto get housing.Now it hasa networkof suchgroupsthroughoutAsia, andsomecities in Latin AmericaandAfrica. This is oneof the key forms of critical politics that the Internetcan makepossible:a politics of the local with a big difference — thesearelocalitiesthat are connectedwith eachotheracrossa region,a countryor the world. Becausethe networkis global doesnot meanthat it all hasto happenat the global level.

Current usesof digital media in this new type of cross-borderpolitical activism suggest,very broadly, two types of digital activism: one that consistsof actual city- centered— or rural-communitycentered,for that matter — activist groupswho connect with other such groupsaroundthe world. The secondtype of digital network centered politics is onethat doesmostof its work in the digital networkandthenmay or may not convergeon an actual terrain for activism, as was the caseof Seattlewith the WTO meeting.Much of the work and the political effort is centeredon the transactionsin the digital network.OrganizingagainsttheMultilateral Agreementon Investmentwaslargely a digital event.But whenthesedigital political actionshit the ground,they cando sovery effectively, especiallyin the concentratedplacesthat cities are.

The large city of today,especiallythe global city, emergesas a strategicsite for these new typesof operations.It is a strategicsite for global corporatecapital.But it is alsooneof the siteswherethe formation of new claims by informal (or asyet not formalized)political actors materializesand assumesconcreteforms. The loss of power at the national level producesthe possibility of new forms of power and politics at the subnationallevel. The national as container of social processand power is cracked (e.g. Taylor, 2000). This crackedcasingopensup possibilitiesfor a political geographythat links subnationalspaces and allows non-formalpolitical actorsto engagestrategiccomponentsof global capital.

The cross-bordernetwork of global cities is a space where we are seeing the formationof newtypesof ‘global’ politics of placewhich contestcorporateglobalization. The demonstrationsby the anti-globalizationnetwork have signaledthe potential for developinga politics centeredon placesunderstoodaslocationsin global networks.This is a place-specificpolitics with globalspan.It is a typeof political work deeplyembedded in people’s actions and activities but made possiblepartly by the existenceof global digital linkages.Further,it is a form of political andinstitution-buildingwork centeredin cities andnetworksof cities andin non-formalpolitical actors.We seeherethe potential transformationof a whole rangeof ‘local’ conditionsor institutionaldomains(suchasthe household,the community,the neighborhood,the local school and health-careentities) where women ‘confined’ to domesticroles, for instance,remain the key actors.From beinglived or experiencedasnon-political,or domestic,theseplacesaretranformedinto ‘micro-environmentswith global span’.

8 I havearguedthis for the caseof international labor migrations(e.g. Sassen,1998: chapters2, 3 and 4).

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What I meanby this term is that technicalconnectivitywill createa variety of links with othersimilar local entitiesin otherneighborhoodsin the samecity, in othercities,in neighborhoodsand cities in other countries.A community of practicecan emergethat createsmultiple lateral,horizontalcommunications,collaborations,solidarities,supports. This can enablelocal political or non-political actorsto enterinto cross-borderpolitics.

The spaceof the city is a far moreconcretespacefor politics thanthat of the nation (Isin, 2000; Sassen,2000). It becomesa placewherenon-formalpolitical actorscan be part of the political scenein a way that is much more difficult at the national level. Nationally, politics needsto run throughexisting formal systems:whetherthe electoral political systemor the judiciary (taking state agenciesto court). Non-formal political actors are renderedinvisible in the spaceof national politics. The spaceof the city accommodatesa broadrangeof political activities — squatting,demonstrationsagainst police brutality, fighting for the rights of immigrantsand the homeless,the politics of cultureandidentity, gay andlesbianandqueerpolitics. Much of this becomesvisible on the street.Much of urbanpolitics is concrete,enactedby peopleratherthandependenton massivemedia technologies.Street-levelpolitics makespossiblethe formation of new typesof political subjectsthat do not haveto go throughthe formal political system.

It is in this sensethat thosewho lack power,thosewho aredisadvantaged,outsiders, discriminatedminorities,cangain presencein global cities, presencevis-à-vis powerand presencevis-à-vis each other (Sassen,1998: Chapter 1). This signals, for me, the possibility of a new type of politics centeredin new types of political actors.It is not simply a matterof havingor not havingpower.Thesearenewhybrid basesfrom which to act.

In this broader and richer context, the political uses of digital technologiescan becomeembeddedin the local. As a politics this is clearly partial, but could be an important building block of the mobilization for global justice and for demanding accountability from global corporate power. We are seeing the emergenceof a denationalizedpolitics centeredon cities andoperatingin global networksof cities. This is a kind of politics of the global that doesnot needto go throughsomesort of world state or the supranationallevel. On the contrary,it runsthroughplacesyet engagesthe global. It would constructa counter-geographyof globalization.We may be just at the beginning of this process.

SaskiaSassen([email protected]),Social ScienceResearchBuilding, The University of Chicago,1126 east59th Street,Chicago,IL 60637,USA.

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