Why not one global city hub?
A question that Saskia
Sassen brought up in her lecture that I began to wrestle with. At first glance
it would actually be nice to have one financial hub, one manufacturing hub;
different places for different specializations.
There is a tension of global and local in our society,
cultures, economy etc. But yet the global activity and participation of its
people creates this ‘differentiation’ aspect Sassen refers to. The complex
situation of local vs global in the text ‘Here, there and North of Nowhere’
argues that it is a both/and topic not a either/or. We must stop dividing the
two. This idea of “glocal” can take the global thinking and apply it locally;
the social conditions spill into local actions and way of life.
Additionally, we can apply both schools of thought of both
Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs in this both/and. Robert Moses approaches it from
the urban macro scale whereas Jacobs takes a more micro neighborhood stance
where she wants to protect the city and understand the ‘ballet’ of the city
being aware of its density, transportation, use etc.
To answer the question of why not one global city? In my opinion
I think if everything were universalized our culture would lack that 'differentiation' factor we desperately need. I think a society operating out of
one nucleolus would quickly fail- not everyone can agree on one method for their
society. What makes our world and cities so interesting is the different
cultures, languages, people, architecture and foods. It’s what makes people want
to travel to those places. The diversity makes our world so rich.
I completely agree with you - I liked how Saskia used Europe as an example to explain the global city hub concept. I think by doing that, we hear he speak about the rich diversity between the economic centers of western Europe - each city brings something a bit different to table. Sure, one global city hub may be more economically productive, but would sacrifice diversity by doing so.
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting point - a global city hub could be more efficient but like you said : would it be worth sacrificing diversity? Another aspect is in terms of architecture: would we be seeing more form follows function buildings or would it be more all the buildings being the same as a result of steel making it so possible? Perhaps there would be more advances in the built environment in said hub.
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