Emerging World Cities in a Global System

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• Emerging World Cities in a Global System
• The Challenges and Opportunities of New
  Urbanisation

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The presentation

• A new way of thinking about Geography
• Globalisation and the world city network
• Emerging world cities Pacific Asia and beyond
• New urbanisation a case study of Dubai

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Globalisation

• Time-space compression has transformed the
  structure and scale of human relationships -
  social, cultural, political and economic
  processes now operate globally.
• It is argued that we live in a borderless world
  in which the nation-state has been rendered
  impotent by footloose MNCs which do not respect
  national boundaries.
• The death of Geography and difference?

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Uneven globalisation 3 key arenas
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The world city network

• Globalisation actually enhances the role of
  cities. Cities are nodes through which global
  systems of capital production and exchange are
  organised (e.g. MNC HQs).
• All cities operate in a global system.
• A global perspective reveals how a city cannot
  just be studied in isolation but has to be
  understood as belonging to a network of cities
  that stretches across the world.

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Cities exist within a complex web of connections
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The world city network

• The Globalisation and World Cities (GaWC) network
  - a network of researchers who have attempted to
  measure how connected cities are to each other.
• Cities are more less integrated into the global
  system arguably those that are more integrated
  are more successful.
• This is dynamic and constantly changing!

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Most connected cities
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Most connected cities
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The rise of Pacific Asia

• Hong-Kong (3rd) the economic Gateway to China,
  supported and challenged by Shanghai (9th) and
  Beijing (10th).
• Singapore (5th), Tokyo (6th), Sydney (7th)

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Emerging world cities

• Outside of the three key arenas of
  globalisation, key cities in developing
  countries are important economic gateways.
• Buenos Aires (16th), Mumbai (17th), Sao Paulo
  (21st), Mexico City (24th), Caracas (38th),
  Santiago (41st), Johannesburg (44th)

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A case study of Dubai

• The Middle East is an emerging arena of
  globalisation and its cities are emerging world
  cities, becoming increasingly connected into the
  world city network.
• Dubai is emerging as the key economic gateway to
  the Middle East (52nd).
• Other emerging world cities in the region include
  Riyadh (59th), Cairo (61st) and Kuwait City
  (65th).

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A case study of Dubai

• Up to 1956, when the first concrete building was
  constructed, the entire population lived in
  basrasrti homes made from palm fronds.
• Dubais chief regional advantage has been its
  endowment of offshore oil although this is
  modest compared to Abu Dhabi and other Middle
  Eastern states.

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A case study of Dubai

• How might we describe the type of city being
  created in Dubai?
• Dubai is a prototype of the new post-global
  city, which creates appetites rather than solves
  problems
• Dubai has become the new global icon of
  imagineered urbanism an emerging dream
  world of conspicuous consumption and what the
  locals boast as supreme lifestyles. Davis
  (2006)

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A case study of Dubai

• Apocalyptic luxuries (Davis 2006)
• Dubai is a city of extreme luxuries based on the
  wealth derived from offshore oil i.e. they are
  gained at the expense of massive environmental
  damage.
• In a utopian model, this windfall would become an
  investment fund for raising the environmental
  efficiency of urban systems. In the real world of
  capitalism, this has not happened.

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A case study of Dubai

• An economically sustainable strategy for
  development?
• In short, no. For a start, Dubais modest
  offshore oil resources are now rapidly being
  exhausted.
• Dubais economy is in speculative overdrive -
  global excess profits from the hugely inflated
  price of oil exports is invested in real estate
  markets and the construction of huge skyscrapers.

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A case study of Dubai

• If past business cycles are any guide, the end
  could be nigh and very messy
• Davis (2006)

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A case study of Dubai

• What are the challenges and opportunities facing
  Dubai in a post-oil economy?
• Assuming that the mega-project blitzkrieg would
  run as planned, it was predicted that Dubai would
  derive all its GDP from non-oil related
  activities like tourism and finance by 2010.
• Dubai predicted that the city would attract15
  million overseas visitors a year by 2010.

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A case study of Dubai

• Dubai also aims to become a leading hub in the
  global economy, and position itself as a hub for
  institutional finance and a gateway to the Middle
  Eastern region for capital and investment.
• The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC)
  is expected to rival international financial
  centres in New York, London, Singapore, Hong
  Kong, and Tokyo.

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A case study of Dubai

• However, there are some key conflicts here with
  Arab Muslim culture
• Prostitution and a sinister sex trade built on
  kidnapping, slavery and violence while the
  regime disavow any collusion with this industry,
  insiders know that this trade is essential to
  keeping the 5-star hotels full of European and
  Arab businessmen Davis (2006).

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A case study of Dubai

• The education of women is essential if Dubai
  the UAE are to modernize their economy become
  the high-tech hub of the Middle East.
• Will a society based on traditional values let
  women become truly become equal partners in
  business and society?

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A case study of Dubai

• Islamic finance is based on Islamic religious
  grounds. It prohibits three aspects of
  conventional interest-based economics riba
  (interest), gharar (uncertainty), and maysir
  (gambling). How will this effect the development
  of Dubai as an emerging global financial centre?
• The disappearance of traditional culture and
  sense of history pride have begun to disappear
  into Westernised popular culture.

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A case study of Dubai

• Forced labour and migrant exploitation.
• Dubais luxury lifestyles are attended by vast
  numbers of Filipina, Sri Lankan and Indian maids,
  while the building boom is carried on the
  shoulders of an army of poorly paid Pakistanis
  and Indians working twelve-hour shifts, six and
  a half days a week, in the asphalt-melting desert
  heat Davis (2006)

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A case study of Dubai

• 99 of the private sector workforce are
  immediately deportable non-citizens from South
  Asia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
• Dubai flouts international labour regulations and
  refuses to adopt the international Migrant
  Workers Convention.
• Rights disappear as often recruitment agencies
  confiscate passports and visas when immigrants
  arrive.

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A case study of Dubai

• The construction industry has an appalling safety
  record and neglects even the most basic needs of
  its workers.
• In 2004, Human Rights watch estimated that as
  many as 880 construction workers were killed on
  the job, with most fatal accidents going
  unreported.

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A case study of Dubai

• Press Freedom is restrained from reporting on
  exploitive working conditions and prostitution.
• Workers are crowded into work camps on the citys
  outskirts, up to 12 to a room, often without air
  conditioning and functioning toilets. Conditions
  are squalid and often unbearable.

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A case study of Dubai

• Migrant workers are paid very low wages (100 to
  150 per month) for working up to 20 hours per
  day. Often this pay is withheld for many months.
• Much of this will be sent home, often leaving
  these workers with no money at all.
• Workers complaining to authorities are threatened
  with deportation.

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A case study of Dubai

• This existence weighs heavily on Adnan he
  feels trapped We listen quietly as he narrates
  his story His state of mind is expressed in the
  statement jism chall raha hain magar rooh ne
  sath chodh diya hai (the body is still going but
  the soul has departed). Every so often he has to
  stop as his eyes begin to well up with tears
  which must not be allowed to fall and undermine
  his masculinity.

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A case study of Dubai

• Very rarely do we see truly new urbanisation.
  Dubai is an emerging world city being built from
  scratch but is its construction a story of
  missed opportunities?
• Environmental sustainability
• Economic sustainability a thirdway?
• Racial and sexual equality
• Cultural diversity and tolerance
• Social justice, welfare and human rights

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Take a look at

• The Globalisation and World Cities website
  http//www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/
• Global Urban Analysis A survey of cities in
  Globalisation (Earthscan, 2010)
• Davis, M (2006) Fear and money in Dubai New
  Left Review volume 41, pp 47-68

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Geography at Staffordshire University

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  in the country?
• Contact
• Allan Watson, Admissions Tutor
• a.watson_at_staffs.ac.uk