These cities’ flexibility and adaptability contribute to their dynamism. They are complex frontiers that constantly present challenges and opportunities to both citizens and visitors. Global cities are always evolving, argues Sassen. Residents of a global city have diverse backgrounds, and their multitude of cultural heritages influences the global city’s unique ambience. A global city allows business to capitalise on the city’s labour pool and its expertise, but it is also a place where innovation and the exchange of ideas take place. In contrast, “global cities are generally well run and highly diverse, with a controlled pace of urbanisation.”įor a city to truly become a global city, Sassen argues that it must fulfil two criteria. “They are places that are out of control, and which are characterised by widespread poverty, crime and public hygiene,” she says.
There are megacity success stories, like Tokyo and New York, but in the developing world many megacities are, in Sassen’s words, “a bit of a mess”. Megacities must aspire to become global cities, says Sassen. Saskia Sassen, Professor of Sociology at Columbia University in New York City, argues that the future will see “more megacities, with more poverty, more disease and more inequality of opportunities and life chances.” Given the direction of human demographics towards greater conglomerations of urban living, the megacity – widely defined as a built-up metropolitan area with a population of over 10 million inhabitants – is on the rise. London, Singapore, Chicago Professor Saskia Sassen © TED Conference
In a world increasingly characterised by the vast urban sprawls of megacities, Sassen argues that cities should aspire to be ‘global’. Saskia Sassen is famously attributed with creating the term ‘global city’ - one that is dynamic, vibrant and influenced by different cultures and business practices.
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