Rethinking Global Urbanism: Comparative Insights from Secondary Cities [Hardcover]

Arguing that the focus in global urban studies on cities such as New York, London, Tokyo in the global North, Mexico City and Shanghai in the developing world, and other major nodes of the world economy, has skewed the concept of the global city toward economics, this volume gathers a diverse group of contributors to focus on smaller and less economically dominant cities. It highlights other important and relatively ignored themes such as cultural globalization, alternative geographies of the global, and the influence of deeper urban histories (particularly those relating to colonialism) in order to advance an alternative view of the global city.

Preface  Tim Bunnell and James D. Sidaway.  Acknowledgments.  Introduction: Bringing the Less Familiar Cities In and Together  Ahmed Kanna and Xiangming Chen  Part I: Urban Present and Past: How Culture, History, and Politics Shape Secondary Global and Local Cityscapes  1. Competitive Globalization and Urban Change: The Allure of Cultural Strategies  Sharon Zukin  2. The Trajectories of Two Asian Tigers : The Colonial Roots of Capitalism in Dubai and Singapore  Ahmed Kanna  3. Shaping Politics in Chinatown: The Intersection of Global Politics and Community Politics in Wartime and Cold War San Francisco  Scott H. Tang  Part II: Urban Contraction and Expansion: Economic Restructuring and Governance in De-Globalizing and Globalizing Secondary Cities  4. Staggering Job Loss, a Shrinking Revenue Base, and Grinding Decline: Springfield, Massachusetts in a Globalized Economy  Robert Forrant  5. From Cars to Casinos:lóÏ