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How cities took over the world: a history of globalisation spanning 4,000…
How cities took over the world: a history of globalisation spanning 4,000 years (Clark 2016)
Cities participate in collective movements to take advantage of new conditions, cities embrace change in international opportunities in waves and cycles
Cities formed the epicentre of a vast trade network based on a common cultural and linguistic community and built infrastructure
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Europe's commercial wave
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Dominated by a powerful merchant class dominating the market economy and having an active role in city leadership
Cities achieved great cultural, artistic and intellectual advances, in both trade and knowledge exchange
Catalyst for ports and caravan cities in the Middle East to develop and globalise, e.g. Tabriz in Iran, specialising in gold and silk cloth-weaving, had an independent merchant class
The post-Columbus wave
Globalisation took on many new characteristics, a new class of consumers appeared with a shared goal to signal position and status, driving major growth in production and retail sectors
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The industrial wave
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Transport becoming ever more reliable, governments much more effective in managing global trade and reducing dangers
The slave trade was critical in financing British imperialism and industrialisation. Manchester emerged as the world's first global industrial city
Infrastructure connectivity was the catalyst- canals, railroads, water systems, etc.
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Economic globalisation expanded massively for decades, American cities became substantially differentiated and specialised at this time, very different social and cultural characters
The postwar wave
Changing geopolitics and American investment support provided opportunities for many commercially minded cities to become highly specialised, e.g. Munich, Toronto and Tokyo
All successfully preserved a culture of knowledge and innovation to support specialisations within global reach
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The IT powered wave
For elites in financial centres, the mid- 1980s started a wave of resurgence where cities began to re-attract people, business and capital.
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Cities also re-established themselves as information and media capitals, emergence of new city governmental systems
New trade agreements such as Nafta, WTO , new period of multilateralism, that allowed many countries and cities to globalise. Growth of BRICS and MINTS
Today’s cities can learn much from how those in previous waves built and sustained their competitive attributes, and how to avoid becoming locked into unsustainable or unproductive cycles of development.