Global City, in the Heart of Centrality by Saskia Sassen Essay

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This book tackles some of the major issues that globalization has brought. It addresses issues such as the increase in global interdependence the liberalization of financial markets. The book also mentions the place of immigrant workers in the global economic cities and their contribution to the global economy. I find myself agreeing with most of the issues raised in the book.

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One of the issues that the chapter tackles are immigration and the forces behind the immigrations that the world has witnessed in the recent past. Immigrants often come from less developed countries to developed cities in search of employment.

The immigrants also notably came from countries that have a level of relationship with the countries of destination. These kinds of relationships ranging from former colonial masters to countries that have foreign direct investments with the countries of the immigrants. Other relationships include military relations among others.

The search for employment remains the main reason behind mass immigration. Other causes include civil wars and famine. He noted that these immigrants always join the global cities workforce as casual laborers, usually because of their low skills. Most global cities are located in the United States, Europe, and Japan.

The presence of migrant workers has considerably contributed to keeping the wage rates in the global cities low. This is because of their low skills and high number. These factors have greatly affected the migrant workers including low wages. Moreover, it is important to note how vulnerable they have become especially women immigrants.

The question of the centrality of the global cities came out as the other issue that the book substantially tackled. Despite the presence of numerous and diverse economies in the world, other cities still attract global business attractions. These attractions do not only happen to the immigrants but also to other professions.

As Sassen described in her book, most of the highly specialized global firms also need the services of other firms such as law firms, programmers and logistics firms. This, therefore, attracts those firms to locate closer to the big firms. This, in turn, brings about the centrality of the firm despite the move to diversify their locations. This also contributes to the increase in competition for the same services from other smaller firms.

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It, therefore, comes out as a disadvantage since it deprives other areas of development and instead concentrates it in particular cities. This makes it very hard to offset developments in other places that would grow into big global economic zones. Moreover, it also contributes to the increase in the expenses of getting such services. This is because of the presence of bigger bidders in the form of big global firms.

Globalization has also caused the marginalization of other places. Some of the global cities are only located in America, Europe and a few cities in Asia. This has made it quite impossible for other cities to make it to the global city status. However, we have some other upcoming cities in Asia such as Bombay and Taipei that have considerably gained steps towards becoming such cities.

Moreover, the global cities continue receiving financial investors, especially in real estate developments while other places still experience a shortage of investors. Financial firms also make more profits as compared to industrial ones even though the financial firms have less to do. This also majorly contributes to the disparity in the income levels of the workers.

The other major issue that arises from the rise in globalization is that countries have lost their sovereignty over the economic value. The need for trans-border transaction in businesses has led to the formulation of different multilateral agreements. These agreements have contributed to making most countries unable to control some of the activities, even though these issues might have a direct influence on their socio-political livelihood.

Countries seeking to attract investors seen have more to lose because they have to create incentives to attract foreign investors. This always causes them to either reduce their regulatory roles or in other cases completely scrap such regulations off. Moreover, some multilateral agreements leave the countries without say on the financial processes taking place within their borders.

These agreements also bring the element of favoritism in some countries and marginalization of others. International Money Fund (IMF), General Agreement on Trade Tariffs (GATT) and World Trade Organization (WTO) are some of the examples of organizations that seem to only favor the west and disadvantage the countries on the periphery.

This is because of the position of the countries as both global cities and investors while the countries on the periphery only act as receivers of the agreements. This makes them have little say on the issues at hand.

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Lastly, we have the disproportion of globalization arising from who the real owner of the city is. In this section, it becomes quite elaborate that the investors have literally taken over the cities.

This is because even the political leaders of the cities have little say on the financial transactions (save for the pressing inevitable issues such as fighting illegal practices). This has led to the marginalization of both the natives and the migrant low skilled workers. This has led to political violence especially from the natives who feel misplaced.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to note that this book exceptionally brings out the negative issues arising from globalization. It also tackles them in a considerably acceptable way. However, the book fails to discuss the issues in an in-depth way but rather just mentions some of the contentious issues. Furthermore, Sassen also does repeat many things. She also does not give a considerable number of examples.

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"Global City, in the Heart of Centrality by Saskia Sassen." IvyPanda, 15 Mar. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/global-city-in-the-heart-of-centrality-by-saskia-sassen/.

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IvyPanda. (2020) 'Global City, in the Heart of Centrality by Saskia Sassen'. 15 March.

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IvyPanda. 2020. "Global City, in the Heart of Centrality by Saskia Sassen." March 15, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/global-city-in-the-heart-of-centrality-by-saskia-sassen/.

1. IvyPanda. "Global City, in the Heart of Centrality by Saskia Sassen." March 15, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/global-city-in-the-heart-of-centrality-by-saskia-sassen/.


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IvyPanda. "Global City, in the Heart of Centrality by Saskia Sassen." March 15, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/global-city-in-the-heart-of-centrality-by-saskia-sassen/.

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