From the outset global cities have been primarily seen as outcomes of changes in global economic capitalism. This has led to critical responses arguing for the need to consider more centrally the role of politics in global city formation, and in particular the need to critically analyse city-state relations in varying geographical contexts. Three dominant strands of critique have emerged: a literature on state rescaling (primarily based on experiences of North American and Western European cities), a literature on developmental states (on East Asian cities) and a literature on postcolonial urban theory (primarily on cities in the Global South). Although these approaches all argue for a re-focusing on the role of the political in global city formation, they do not easily fit other geographical and geopolitical contexts. This thesis aims to contribute to the debate by focusing on the case of Istanbul as Turkey s emerging global city. Based on semi-structured interviews, this research challenges some key assumptions of global cities research, state rescaling approach, developmental approach and postcolonial urban theory through the case of Istanbul. It also provides a critical conceptual understanding of Istanbul s globalisation, argues the role of actors in global city making and will demonstrate that contrary to what is generally claimed in the literature, the relationship between Istanbul (city) and Turkey (state) could be assessed as more harmonious rather than tension-filled. Furthermore, the research goes beyond revealing the points where Istanbul conforms or does not conform to the existing approaches, and addresses the very recent academic debates between those who believe that we need new theories to understand the dynamics and impacts of the actual global urbanisation and those who suggest that instead of calling for new theories there is a need to examine and improve the existing approaches. To do that, my research develops an alternative conceptualisation -- the in-between city - that might cover the cities located in the region spreading from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. The argument behind this concept is that owing to their intersectional positions between East and West, and the continual links between their imperial and global periods, cities such as Istanbul, Vienna, Budapest, St. Petersburg or Moscow, present more hybrid characteristics in comparison to the cities categorised by the existing approaches.

In this dissertation, I evaluate questions related to the role of connectivity in economic and innovation-related processes. Specifically, I utilize conceptual frameworks from the economic geography literature to study the relevance of internal, external, and infrastructural connectivity at a city level.In the first essay, I examine the role of intra-metropolitan connectivity of inventors and evaluate the quality of the associated innovation outputs. I focus on the fact that there exist meaningful demographic differences between people domiciled in city centers and the suburban areas and claim that these heterogeneities serve as sources of diversity and creativity. I suggest empirical evidence that the collaboration of inventors from the two different sub-regions is associated with higher quality innovation outcomes. I further study how firm heterogeneity moderates the effects of this intra-metropolitan connectivity. The findings suggest that local firms and small to mid-sized firms (SMEs) enjoy more benefits because foreign firms and large firms are exploiting their own global network. This paper provides both managerial and practical implications that a metropolitan area may improve its quality of innovation outputs by taking advantage of the urban-suburban connectivity among the inventors. In the second essay, I provide specific guidelines to city planners to evaluate the external connectivity of the associated city. Cities are industry hotspots, playing vital roles as centers of economic development. Each city has different location-specific advantages that can foster different core industries and firms, participating in diverse activities within a global value chain system. Given the increasing rate of globalization at the metro level, it has become paramount for cities to establish and develop economic partnerships with other cities to further growing their regional economies. However, few city planners have clear directions in choosing partner cities, and the decisions are rarely based on appropriate data analysis. Based on the Brookings Institution’s Global City Initiative 2.0 project, and after enhancing it with additional data analyses, I introduce a set of step-by-step guidelines to city planners for finding global partner cities. To provide an actual case, I share our own anecdote regarding how Philadelphia chose potential partner cities in order to attract more FDI in its biopharmaceutical sector and foster innovation activities. I also present evidence that the inadequate ability of local firms to source knowledge from international markets associates with relatively weak economic performance. The comprehensive analyses of the city’s role in the global value chain include from the upstream (Research and Development) and the midstream (FDI, imports, international joint ventures) to the downstream (exports). This case-based paper provides practical implications to city planners by providing ways of understanding the broad global value chain with which the city is involved. In the third essay, I assess the relationship between soft networks and hard networks of global cities. Public transportation systems (PTS) have been developed along with the associated metropolitan area. Scholars in urban studies have emphasized the important roles of PTS in connecting diverse people, regions, activities, and socio-economic consequences. In this paper, I examine the relationship between public transportation systems and the innovation network in four major U.S. cities in the northeast - New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. I graphically show that inventor locations, as well as their connectivity, are established along with the city’s public transportation networks. I further stipulate that this relationship has been seriously undermined by the recent pandemic – COVID-19. Even though it is too early to draw a conclusion, I advance propositions that predict how the relationship between public transportation network and inventor connectivity will be changed followed by the pandemic. In conclusion, I claim that a metropolitan area’s internal, external, and infrastructural network significantly affects its competitiveness. Throughout this dissertation, I confirm that both hard networks and soft networks are key to enhancing the economic and innovative performance of the city. / Business Administration/International Business Administration

Yes / This study explores the impact of city-specific factors on skilled migrants’ career capital within the intelligent career framework. It compares global and secondary cities as distinct career landscapes and examines how differently they shape development and utilisation of three ways of knowing (knowing-how, knowing-whom and knowingwhy). Findings from 82 qualitative interviews with skilled migrants in global (London) and secondary (Newcastle) UK cities explain the importance of cities at an analytical level, as skilled migrants’ careers were differently constrained and enabled by three groups of city-specific factors: labour market, community and lifestyle. By exploring the two types of cities in career context, this article contributes to developing an interdisciplinary dialogue and problematises careers as a relational and contextually embedded phenomenon. Limitations and recommendations are discussed.

Thesis (MA (Political Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The global city discourse posits a new role for cities in light of increased economic integration and the rise of a global economy. Firms are increasingly investing capital in locations where profits are anticipated to be highest, creating a geographic dispersal of economic activity. As a result, the central command functions of firms – management, coordination, servicing, and financing of vast networks of operations – have become more complex and strategic. Firms thus outsource a portion of their central command functions to specialised service firms. Specialised service firms tend towards high levels of agglomeration and concentrate in a small number of locations, giving rise to command and control centres of the global economy or global cities. Cities of the South are increasingly fulfilling global city functions, yet are generally approached through a developmentalist framework. The global city discourse places salience on specialised services and exhibits a Western bias. This study develops an alternative analytical framework that recognises an array of activities and processes, across three spheres of globalisation – markets, mafias, and movements – that contribute to the global connectivity of cities. In this way the role of cities of the South in the global economy is better understood. This study focuses on Mexico City and Johannesburg as global cities of the South. What the research uncovers is that these cities fulfil many global city functions and are amongst the best connected cities in their respective regions in terms of their ability to service global capital through growing specialised service sectors. In this way Mexico City and Johannesburg emerge as global cities of the South that integrate large geographical areas, populations, and sub-global economies with the global economy. This study also illustrates that the way in which global cities are conceptualised limits the extent to which the concept can be applied in Southern context. Global cities of the South service far less global capital because of the nature of core/semi-periphery/periphery relations and underdevelopment, the role they fulfil in the global economy is, however, no less critical than that of global cities of the core. This study therefore proposes thinking of global cities as constituent units of a global urban network, garnering certain power by occupying a particular niche constitutive of the whole network.

In this thesis, I propose that bike courier delivery is not merely a convenient service for clients but an important function in the operation of successful economies. By allowing the regions to function at higher speeds, same-day courier networks seem to play an active role in generating positive economic outcomes. The availability of courier networks is found to be as uneven as economic vitality itself. Cities like New York and Toronto have large, dense courier networks, capable of delivering items within an hour while smaller cites, do not support same-day courier service at all. They do this, in part, by allowing for couriers to cope with the precariousness of their work, and in part by providing supportive sub-cultures. These findings point to the role of service workers, and wider eco-systems in fostering regional advantage.

In this thesis, I propose that bike courier delivery is not merely a convenient service for clients but an important function in the operation of successful economies. By allowing the regions to function at higher speeds, same-day courier networks seem to play an active role in generating positive economic outcomes. The availability of courier networks is found to be as uneven as economic vitality itself. Cities like New York and Toronto have large, dense courier networks, capable of delivering items within an hour while smaller cites, do not support same-day courier service at all. They do this, in part, by allowing for couriers to cope with the precariousness of their work, and in part by providing supportive sub-cultures. These findings point to the role of service workers, and wider eco-systems in fostering regional advantage.

abstract: Beijing, in its Twelfth Five-Year Plan for the National Economic and Social Development of Beijing (2011 – 2015), affirmed its intention to become a leading “World City with Chinese characteristics.” This research is based on an assessment of the proposed strategies contained within the 12th Five-Year plan that are grounded in the set of indicators (variables) closely associated with world city status. Indicator selection (e.g., percentage of foreign born population) is based on review of shared characteristics of world cities (e.g., Tokyo, New York, Singapore) constrained by availability of Beijing data; plus the significant academic literature on the topic from leading scholars such as Peter Hall. Using these indicators, Beijing’s baseline conditions and associated trends are established for assessment in a Status-Quo Scenario. Thereafter, interventions proposed by the Beijing Municipality to achieve world city status are evaluated. The results of this assessment will inform Beijing’s policy-makers regarding potential obstacles, pitfalls, or potential disruptions on the road to premier ‘World City’ status, and emphasize the need to undertake peremptory interventions and/or prepare contingency responses, as well as, inform stakeholders and decision-makers of critical and non-critical interventions recommended to achieve World City status by the year 2030. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Urban and Environmental Planning 2016

The diploma thesis "Global cities in the air transport system" is focused on the importance of global cities for the international airline network. The first chapter defines significant clasification of the global cities and subsequently, the operational ranking is created based on the three selected rankings of global cities. Second chapter is dedicated to the system of air transport and also defines the main air transport hubs in particular world regions. Following chapter analyses transportation outputs of the airports of global cities and its growth in years 2004 - 2008 based on the economic level of each state. It also identifies factors that have the highest influence on the air transport outputs within the frame of global cities. In last chapter, the selected global cities are ranked by their connectivity within airline network based on the results of analysis of airline connectivity of global cities. In the conclusions the importance of the global cities for international airline network is summarised.

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Recent years have seen a huge increase in the amount of data collected from multiple sources: mobile phones are ubiquitous, social networks are widely used, cities are more and more connected and the mobility of people and goods has risen to a global scale. The Big Data Era has opened the doors to new kinds of studies that were unthinkable with previous qualitative methods: human behavior can now be analyzed with a fine-grained resolution, patterns of mobility and behavior can be extracted from the incredible amount of data collected every day. Modern large cities are becoming more and more interconnected and this phenomenon leads to an increasing communication and activities’ synchronization. Due to the amount of data available or for anonymization reasons, it is often necessary to aggregate data spatially and temporally. A natural representation of clustered mobility data is the temporal network representation. In this thesis we focus on these two aspects of spatial distance in human mobility: (i) we study the synchronization of 76 Italian cities, using mobile phone data, showing that both distance between cities and city size determine the synchronization in communication rhythms. Moreover, we show that the effect of the distance in synchronization decreases when the size of the city increases; (ii) we investigate how clustering continuous spatio-temporal data affects spatio-temporal network measures for real-life and synthetic datasets and analyze how spatio-temporal networks’ measures vary at different aggregation levels.