Cities Without Borders

An anonymous reader writes "There is a very interesting article about Cities Without Borders in the latest issue of Mindjack. The author, Paul Hartzog, argues that we are seeing the emergency of 'global cities' concentrating command-and-control functions for the global economy. For instance, the increasing importance of certain cities such as New York, London, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Sydney or Miami shows they not only support complex webs of businesses but also participate in a global network for the production and distribution of finance and capital. This is just one example. You should read the original article to see if you agree with the author -- or not."

Comments

Why NYC and Hollywood Hate the Rest of US

[Anonymous Coward]

By contrast, Sassen notes that global cities take on a distinct identity as they disconnect from their regional geography. If this is reflected in cultural reproduction then we can expect to see changes in people's sense of identity. We might find individuals thinking of themselves as New Yorkers first and Americans second...

Marvelous! This explains in part why the elites of New York City and Hollywood regard the rest of us as primitives living in "fly over country," and why the more loud-mouthed among them keep threating to leave the country. It also explains their love affair for the French-reared Kerry with his six homes scattered around the globe.

More disturbingly, it explains their scarcely concealed anti-Semitism. Arabs have many billions to channel through these money-obsessed "Cities without Borders." Israel is not only poor and small, Israelis love their troubled little land, something these people never understand.

But notice the post-election commentary from this elite group. They're already taking about how they'll package their candidate in 2008. No more "war hero" and fake hunter charades. He'll look religious and talk incessantly about "our shared moral values." But it'll be a sham to trick those they consider fools and rubes.

By then America will have alternatives to the Grey Lady (the NY Times) and the three weird sisters, ABC, CBS and NBC. We saw the beginnings of that in this election with the SwiftVets and Rather's bogus memos. In the 2008 election, a few dozen people in Manhattan will no longer dictate to us what is and is not news. We will decide for ourselves. In an increasingly decentralized world, centralized new gathering has no place.

Chances are their schemes won't work anyway. They pulled out all the stops for this election, spinning the news in Kerry's favor more than in any election since researchers began to keep tabs on such things in the 1960s. And yet Kerry not only lost by lawyer-proof margins, Bush became the first President since FDR (1936) to win reelection and increase his party's power in both the House and Senate.

--Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle