Urban Futures: Alternative Models for Global Cities

Monografías CIDOB nº. 73 

The concept of “global cities” became popular in the 1990s to account for the strategic role of major urban centres in articulating the effervescent neoliberal globalisation of capitalism. Almost three decades on, the transnational space anchored in global cities has changed substantially. This scenario invites a new interrogation of the notion of global cities, particularly from the perspective of its associated modes of governance, city production and urban regulation.

The prevailing urban development pattern has forged “city brands” and boosted inter-urban competition, attracting financial and real estate rent-seeking activities as well as the insufficiently problematised “talents” of the global “creative classes”. It has also generated a process of planetary gentrification and further uprooted cities from their surroundings.

Transformations in the “glocal” conditions embodied in global cities pose new challenges for city dwellers and public authorities. The scalar restructurings of the global governance system suggest a repositioning of cities at different levels. The claim to the “right to the city” underscores, in turn, the existing disputes around the appropriation of urban space and its production. In the interstices of these processes, new models of development, both within and beyond the prevailing value systems and digitalisation paradigms, require special consideration.

Key words: global cities; right to the city; global governance; inclusive cities; new urban models

ISBN: 978-84-92511-71-6