The World’s Cities offers instructors and students in higher education an accessible introduction to the three major perspectives influencing city-regions worldwide: City-Regions in a World System; Nested City-Regions; and The City-Region as the Engine of Economic Activity/Growth.
The book provides students with helpful essays on each perspective, case studies to illustrate each major viewpoint, and discussion questions following each reading. The World’s Cities concludes with an original essay by the editor that helps students understand how an analysis incorporating a combination of theoretical perspectives and factors can provide a richer appreciation of the world’s city dynamics.
Table of Contents:
Cities and Regions Evolving in an Ever-Changing World; 1: City-Regions in a World System: An Overview; 1: Where We Stand: A Decade of World City Research (1995); 2: Cities in a World Economy (2006); 3: Hierarchical Tendencies and Regional Patterns in the World City Network … (2003); 4: Mexico City: The Making of a Global City? (2002); 5: Location Theory in Reverse? Location for Global Production in the IT Industry of Bangalore (2008); 6: Building Shanghai: Historical Lessons from China's Gateway (2008); 7: Race, Space and the Post-Fordist Spatial Order of Johannesburg (2008); 8: Global Dubai or Dubaization (2010); 2: Nested City-Regions; 9: The Nested City (2003); 10: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: America's Global Cities (1999); 11: Race, Fragmentation, and Divergent Outcomes in Detroit and Toronto (2013); 12: Planning Taipei (2006); 13: Expanding Income Stratification in the Tokyo Region (2013); 14: Experiencing Jakarta (2008); 15: Actor Networks and Hybrid Developmental States: Malaysia's Multimedia Super-corridor and New York's Silicon Alley (2003); 16: Ulsan: South Korea's Great Industrial City (2013); 3: The City-Region as the Engine of Economic Activity/Growth: An Overview; 17: Regions, Globalization, Development (2003); 18: The Bratislava-Žilina Auto Corridor: Capitalist Agglomeration in the Post-Socialist CEE (2013); 19: The Development Industry and Urban Redevelopment in New York and London (2001); 20: Hong Kong: An Entrepreneurial City in Action (2000); 21: Innovation in Europe: A Tale of Networks, Knowledge and Trade in Five European Cities (2002); 22: From World Cities to Gateway Cities: Extending the Boundaries of Globalization Theory (2000); 23: From Modernist to Market Urbanism: The Transformation of New Belgrade (2011); 24: Collaborative Regionalism and FDI Growth: The Cases of Mississippi's PUL Alliance and Alabama–Georgia's Auto Valley Partnership (2013); Conclusions and Lessons; The Nexus City Model: Bridging the Local, Regional, National, and International Contexts
About the Author :
A. J. Jacobs is an Associate Professor and the Director of Graduate Studies in East Carolina University’s Department of Sociology. He was an Assistant Professor in the University of Cincinnati’s School of Planning, a Visiting Associate Professor in Hosei University’s Faculty of Business (in Tokyo, Japan), and a Visiting Assistant Professor in Michigan State University’s Urban Planning Program. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology–Urban Studies from Michigan State University and his Master’s in Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Review :
"The book does a great job of including three major, but usually separate, perspectives on urban studies. Leading authors are represented, such as Abu-Lughod, Friedmann, Hill, Sassen, Scott and Storper, and Short…. For undergraduate courses, the global view provided by the book is more important. Chapters on Asia and North America in all three parts, chapters on Mexico City, Johannesburg, and Dubai representing Latin America, Africa, and Middle East, respectively, and chapters on Europe primarily in Part III, are nicely balanced. " –Ed Malecki, Geography, Ohio State University
"The World’s Cities goes where other readers have not ventured. The variety of theoretical perspectives and cases is truly impressive. The book offers an enticing invitation to a dialogue about cities and regions across the world." –Michael Indergaard, Sociology and Anthropology, St. John’s University
"This book provides a valuable framework and exemplars for understanding and analyzing the transformation of the world’s major cities in the era of globalization."–Michael Timberlake, Sociology, University of Utah
This is the volume for which the teachers of global cities courses have long been waiting. Jacobs mixes classic articles and theoretical perspectives with interesting case studies of Tokyo, Shanghai, Jakarta, London, Mexico City, New York, Toronto, and more--material to which students can actually relate. Jacobs has produced a most usable volume for the classroom!--Myron A. Levine, Urban Affairs, Wright State University
Cities no longer only serve and thrive locally and operate in highly complex regional and global environments. The World’s Cities is a compilation of contributions to three major schools of thought on how cities interact within their contexts, and what constitutes these contexts. Students and scholars of cities will find this book a great resource.--Mahyar Arefi, Planning, University of Cincinnati
"Making sense of a large, disparate, rapidly expanding literature, Jacobs provides an indispensable aid for students struggling to understand cities in economic globalization. Careful choice of key readings provides both critical introduction to the subject and insights into on-going debates."—Peter Taylor, Built and Natural Environment, Northumbria University
