Robinson View Against Sassen View and Highlights the Importance of the Contrasting Perspectives - Term Paper Example

Student Name: Tutor: Title: Explain and Analyze Saskia Sassen Course: Explain and Analyze Saskia Sassen Introduction Jennifer Robinson and Saskia Sassen are prominent sociologists that have contributed immensely to the field of sociology. Saskia global cities approach seems to trigger a contrasting view from Jennifer Robinson and she details her ordinary city theory in his book ‘Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development’. Sassen advances her global cities argument in his book ‘Cities in world economy’. Both world-cities and global-cities analyses bring into focus the wider processes that shape cities into a globalizing world and economic connections among cities. This is the view held by Saskia Sassen in global cities theory. On the other hand Jennifer Robinson counters global-cities approach as limiting contemporary urban theory potential. She of the view that the pre-historical roles played by some cities that are considered ordinary; are too important to be categorized as insignificant. Some of the existing differentiations and categories fail to acknowledge the importance ordinary cities. Co-location or proximity has been pointed out as the reason of some emergence of some cities. Saskia Sassen is influential in the interpretation of the city in connection to the transnational urban system that is part of it (Evans, 2005). This essay discusses Robinson view against Sassen view and highlights the importance of the contrasting perspectives. It is important to note that the two scholars contribute positively towards understanding of urbanization both in post-colonial and pre-colonial era. There is a comparative analysis of the Robinsons and Sassen contribution in regard to global and ordinary cities perspectives. The connectivity drawn by Robinson in regard to co-location of cities gives an insight into the importance of some cities regardless of how poor they seem to be. Robinson argues that the consequence of urban studies geographical division between urban theory, widely narrowed on the West, and developmental studies, emphasized on the places that were once referred to as ‘third-world cities’. Whereas the division may be simply innocent acknowledgement of difference, the constant alignment of a ‘development’/’theory’ dualism with the ‘third world’/’West’ division found in urban studies portrays a different story. Robinson observes that such interpretation limit the understanding of urban economic dynamism. Saskia Stassen global city argument In an important step to world-cities literature, Saskia Sassen came up with the name ‘global cities’ to capture what she explains is the distinctive feature of the prevailing phase of the economy in the world: the global organization and growing transformational elements’ structure of the economy globally (Glaeser, 2011). Her observation is that spatially dispersed global economy needs locally based and integrated organization and she says that this occurs in global cities. Global cities possess four central themes. Global cities have economic activity territorial decentralization that failed to distribute profits and business more broadly. Global cities are growingly serving as international financial centers that are powerful. When the economy becomes globalised the central functions are concentrated in fewer places that are referred to global cities. Much importance has been placed on the way these economies order cities internally. The importance of banks or corporation is not discounted by Sassen (Sassen, 2001). There is need for a reflection on the manner in which global cities interact with the nation state. The coming up of global markets for specialized services and finance, the increase of investment as a main type of international transaction, all have enabled the expansion in command functions and in need for specialized services for existing firms. Central functions refer to the top level legal, financial, managerial, executive, accounting, or planning functions which are needed to run a corporate firm that is operating in more than one country, and growing in several countries. Central functions are fairly entrenched in headquarters, but besides in good part in what is referred the corporate services complex. These concentrations of firms giving central functions for the coordination and management of economic systems, are unevenly concentrated in countries that are highly developed (Sassen, 2007). According to Sassen, cities are declining as vital economic units owing to global multinationals and communications. Global and national markets together with organizations that are globally integrated require places globalization work can take place. Information industries’ Leading firms need huge physical infrastructure having strategic nodes with hyper-concentration of facilities. Multiple components make up capital mobility. The role of cities in globalizing world contains resources that enable markets and firms to have global operations. Capital mobility in form of trade, overseas affiliates, or investments are key components that make up capital mobility. Although they are place-bound, they consists important part of capital mobility. Globalization optic contributes to identification of a complex organizational architecture which encompasses cross-borders and it is partially concentrated and partially de-territorialized in cities. Global cities around the world refer to the terrain whereby a multiplicity of globalization processes assumes localized and concrete forms. Whereas many companies that are transnational no longer maintain Saskia Sassen is influential in the interpretation of the city in connection to the transnational urban system that is part of it (Varsanyi, 2000). Sassen was the first sociologist to apply the term global city in reference to differentiating feature of the prevailing phase of the global economy (Hall & Hubbard, 2001). Sassen observes that a lot of literature on the global cities does not often admit the presence of transnational urban system, but only portray that global cities carry out specific functions at a scale that are transnational (Sassen, 2007). A lot of social science is largely rooted in the nation-state being the ultimate unit for analysis that conceptualizing systems and processes as transnational is likely to create a lot of controversy. It has been observed that world-cities and global-cities approaches support a focus on the promotion of economic relations with a global perspective and putting as a priority particular important sectors of the global economy for investment and development (Smith, 2001). The view of the policy is for cities to have an assumption and work towards attainment of their allocated place in the world cities’ hierarchy. Majority of cities in countries that are poor would find it difficult to purposely aspire to offer a home for the command and control of global economy functions that Sassen points out as concentrated in particular global cities (Gehl, 2010). More feasible for many cities that are poorer is to base on some of the other ‘global functions’ that Sassen links to global cities. These encompass supporting attractive ‘global’ tourist environment despite it not having anything of locational dynamics of control-and-command global-city functions (Chambers, 2001). Delinked from the concentration of culture and art associated with the employment of professionals highly who are skilled in global cities, the urge to translate to global in purely tourist terms can take a city at the opposite end of power relations in regard to the global economy, while at the same time hugely jeopardizing basic services provision to the local people. Moreover, export processing zones (EPZ) can be ‘global’ because they are transnational spaces in the national territory. On the other hand, they are involved in the placing the concerned city in a position that is relatively powerless in the global economy, which is not likely to be the city’s best position alternative for future development and growth (Bridge, 2005). These are not regions where the global economy is controlled, they fall in the other end; they are found in the other end of the control-and-command continuum of the functions’ of global-city. Different aspects in the global economy need organizing and coordination and some of the activities are concentrated in cities which may not be considered as global cities. For instance, Manila has concentration of institutions and agencies which facilitate movement of low-paid labor from migrants to countries which are wealthier (Etzioni, 2004). Saskia Sassen explores a re-reading of cities by representations of its post-colonial connection to topography. Topography in this case refers to approaches which subdivide informal settlements from the other parts of the city. Postcolonial theorists are of the view that the ordinary cities have to be considered, instead as being a set of spaces where diverse ranges of rational webs fragment, interconnect, and coalesce. Such a perspective recognizes the citizens’ potential for cultural, economic, and political dynamism and creativity. In the Saskia Sassen perspective, the global city is not a merely a material city according to conventional sense but connected through communication links between financial districts in cities like Tokyo, New York, and London (Sassen, 2007). These districts possess little economic, social or cultural contact with geographically adjacent urban neighborhoods. Sassen sees the global city as a site for production in post-industrial and participates in all ranges of economic sectors and provides markets for the circulation of its products through innovation, internalization, deregulation, and creative risk (Bouteligier, 2012). This diverts from the Robinson perspective that the pre-colonial history are important in determining the importance of cities. Sassen view brings about a map that has little connection to the nation-states boundaries but is articulate as a map of production that is post-industrial. Sassen observes that a small number of cities that are national capitals like Tokyo and London, or commercial centers for example like New York, have concentrations of important functions in the new economy, and are capable of keeping them while other cities are not fully represented in this loop in spite of profiles which emanate because of other reasons (Robinson, 2006). Culture is important means of remapping the cities’ status or builds the relevance of financial centers such as Frankfurt and Paris, Barcelona and Milan, outside the global city circuit (Sassen, 2001). Ordinary city argument by Jennifer Robinson Jennifer Robinson criticizes the world city theory in his in her book known as Ordinary Cities, and looks forward to setting an agenda for new generation for urban scholarship that is beyond divisive hierarchies and categories to come up with a post-colonial urban theory that offers a challenge the colonial power relations that are embedded in the practices and assumptions of contemporary urban theory. Robinson looks at both cultures of cities and economies of cities as framed via city residents, managers, and other policy makers. Jennifer Robinson concept on ordinary cities is that instead of viewing cities as more dynamic or advanced than others, or dividing cities into groupings that are commensurable by categories, or having the assumption that show others’ features, she proposes the importance of seeing cities as ordinary, and being part of the analysis of the same field (Wacquant, 2008). Ordinary cities can be considered as unique assemblages of processes that are wider. The propelling force of the economy gave strong encouragement to officials and politicians eager to make economic growth as a fundamental. Nevertheless, the ordinary city’s diversity made it difficult to achieve devoid of the attention to the wider context. The poorest residents’ needs were not only important electronically; national urban legislation compelled developmental local government as well as required strong attention to deliverance of needs that are basic. Johannesburg had to adopt a perspective that is more nuanced. At the time, the economy was viewed as the fundamental priority. Any political aid for the purpose of political growth has to encompass attention to delivery of basic service. Jennifer Robinson is responsible for bringing cities outside the perspective the global city as envisioned by Sassen into the mainstream discussion (Massey, 2004). Johannesburg, Kuala Lumpur and Lusaka are ex-colonial cities but the group consist all cities despite them belonging to different categories. Robinson is of the view that perspectives privileging economic mechanisms do not put into consideration factors that are responsible for delivering of economic aims; and besides the future of a city is produced in complex interactions of political and social factors, economic policies and forces, and global webs of communication, as the case of Johannesburg. Robinson questions the habit of writing about cities which are seen as predominant-whether for dystopian conditions as in the case of Los Angeles, or cultural rebranding as in the case of Barcelona, and taken as examples on which the other cities future is founded (Yeoh, 2005). Robinson give an example of Johannesburg politician as portraying the models for the 2030 vision include Birmingham, Porto Allegre and cases from Australia and Canada. The perspective is founded on histories that are diverse and mediated by a need to offer basic services to the population of the city, directing attention to local conditions. However, this does not turn Johannesburg into an ordinary city in contrast of those cities where such needs are not met, but brings forth a special case of urban development, and in all respect cases similarly ordinary in representing various ways of negotiating an partition between a set of conditions and a world-view. There is also an axis between deregulation and planning (Bennett & Butler, 2000). The perspective of ordinary cities is important in its emphasis on diversity as the condition that can be generalized of city living, hence the basis for imaging the future of a city. Robinson is of the view that both world–cities and global-cities perspectives serve to constraint the view with regard to cities that are viewed as insignificant or irrelevant and go ahead and eliminate them from analysis in the map (Nicholls, 2009). They consequently send the cities to the theoretical void. Constructing on appreciation of the globalization role in shaping of city life; accounts of ‘ordinary cities’, nevertheless, put emphasis on social and economic networks diversity, overlapping to come up with complex and dynamic urban societies (Wolfensohn, 2001). A town like Lusaka in Zambia is still reproduced and constituted through its relations with other regions of the country, and the globe at large. The city still continues to carry out its functions of regional and national centrality with regard to financial and political services, and functions as an important market for services and goods from the country and the globe. It is fair to acknowledge the fact that global links are fast changing and therefore inequalities, poverty, and power relations are responsible for the quality of the particular links. Robinsons contends that it is not in order to portray those poor countries and cities are not important to the global economy. Barbara (2009) explains that when studied from the perspective of the places that are seen as ‘off the map’, the economy of the globe is of substantial significance in determining the fortunes and futures of cities around the globe. With regard to poor, ‘structurally irrelevant cities’, the importance of flows of practices, resources, and ideas into and beyond the city concerned from around the globe is contrary to the claims being made about irrelevance (Mapes, 2009). As another writer points out, it is important to examine the manner in which countries relate with the global economy, as well as the historical, social, and cultural historical legacies that a country carries into the globalization era when one wants to understand the urbanization process in the less developed countries. These cities’ historical legacies are products of previous global encounters. Consequently, even poorest cities possess long historical contacts and interactions with other regions and have for some time related with the global economy in different roles, for production, extraction, trade, and cultural exchange. These kinds of connections, perhaps changed, can remain important of contemporary urban dynamics’ components (Fainstein & Campbell, 2011). From the economists account, seen from the world-cities map, some of the earlier versions of the world-city hypothesis are more relevant to cities that are poor than later. In this respect, not only global processes that are important, the spatial reach of the influence of the city is interpreted to vary, and there is scope for relating to the wider role of cities in relation to their nation and hinterland, together with to the global economy. Many cities in the world are brought into view as being important provincial centers, symbolic and political centers, or perhaps as vital production and transport hubs in regional and national economies (Carr & Emma, 2008). Preventing against economic reductionism and going beyond the constraints of global scale of transnational activities will make sure that the range of cities of concern to world-cities theorists is less exclusive. There is a point of view that says that all cities are world cities which is considered in the world-cities literature (Mike, 2006). Robinsons envisage an urban theory which is substantially committed to comparative work, cautious, suspicious concern hierarchies and categories and eager to promote strategies for improvements in the city improvements that are founded on their individual and distinctive resources and creativeness. Robinson is of the view that the concepts of development and modernity place the world of cities into differentiations and categories that constraint the contemporary urban theory potential, both are as a result of colonial past which are present at the emergence of urban studies. The two concepts are closely related and they all work to constraint both the practices of city planning and cultural imaginations of city life. In another argument, it is the small parts of few major cities that play host to and make sure that there is functioning that is effective via proximity to an increasing number of these new business-service and producer firms (Lefebvre, 2003). The huge transnational corporations are no longer at the center of these functions. Robinson appreciates that the historical aspect of a city has to be considered when determining the categorization of cities. The pre-historical contributions of small cities cannot be ignored when discussion significant cities in the world (Lloyd, 2006). Robinsons is opposed to mega-city and developmentalist approaches that convey to the rest of the city the characterization of those parts that are short of services and facilities. Showing mega-cities as sites of despair and decline emphasizes the hierarchy disparity between cities, with mega-cities being binary counterpart to global cities and continuing the colonial paternalism. Robinsons advanced the argument of considering cities without necessarily the privileging the experiences of particular kinds of cities. It is important to think about cities through exploring different ways in other cities; and the importance of a cosmopolitan perspective to cities that consists of wider flows and circulations which shape them in for the purpose of appreciating the dynamism and creativity of all cities. It is essential to deploy cosmopolitan and comparative approaches as well as dislocating ethnocentric accounts that move it closer to form of urban theorizing that is post-colonial (Allen, 2002). At the same time, they have brought into consideration the ordinary city. It is not enough to view some cities as more dynamic or advanced then others, or to divide cities into groupings that are incommensurable via hierarchy categories, Robinsons proposes the essence of viewing all cities as ordinary and being part of the same field. The aftermath of this is to bring into perspective various aspects of cities apart from those that have been emphasized in world and global cities analyses (Lefebvre, 2003). Ordinary cities can be considered as outstanding assemblages of wider processes-they are all unique in one category. She acknowledges that there are differences within cities but they are best considered as being promiscuously distributed across cities. Even if there exist huge differences between very poor and very wealthy cities, for instance, scholars of these cities have a lot to learn from each other. Learning from world-cities and global cities approaches, ordinary cities prevail within a world of flows and interactions. Nevertheless, in place of world-cities and global cities approaches that emphasize of a small range of political and economic activities in the restrictive perspective of the global, ordinary cities elicit a huge mix of circulations and networks of varying spatial reach and bring together different kinds economic, political, and social processes (Rennie & Yeong-Hyun, 2008). From Robinson’s perspective, ordinary cities are internally differentiated, complex, and diverse. The outcomes of thinking of cities as being as ordinary are substantial, with the effect for direction of urban policy and the assessment of the potential futures of other types of cities. Considering cities as being interactions’ of overlapping networks leads first to an account of the capacity of cities for creativity fostering (Tyner, 2000). Many cities accounts’ emphasize only specific elements of the city (information flows, finance services) or particular parts of the city hence both occasioning the problem of synecdoche-they describe cities as being co-presence of multiple times, multiple relations’ webs, and multiple spaces, tying local fragments, subjects and sites into globalizing networks of cultural, social, and economic change (Klesner, 2007). The overlapping interaction’s networks in the city-networks that go beyond only the physical part of the city and consider it in the range of connections to other regions in the world. Comparative analysis It is not enough that so many writers argue that in the era of globalization the essence of a place for economic and social processes may have been exaggerated. Precisely, and classically owing to the transnationalisation of vast business activities, the increasing application of advanced financial services and producer services has seemingly led to the emergency in the demand for central location in important cities (Latour, 2004). This cannot be applied to all economic activities or all cities, but the issue of clusters of particular types of firms in some cities has occasioned a strong sense of the persistence importance of localization even if an economy that is globalizing and strongly interconnected (Taylor, 2000). The views held by Robinson are fundamental in the understanding the pre-historic value of cities regardless of their importance now. There are cities which are ordinary by have played a key role on the emergence of the global-cities or world-cities. Consequently, the economy and rendering social and financial services should not be the only means of categorizing the importance of cities (Clammer, 2003). Some poorer cities have continued to play an important role in the post-colonial period. The hierarchies and categories that are being formed by scholars do not necessarily reflect the roles that the cities have played in other growth other significant cities. Assessment of globalization by the concept of the global city brings about a strong focus on the strategic components of global economy as opposed the more diffuse and broader homogenizing dynamics associated with consumer markets globalization. Robinson cautions about the effect of using global-cities approaches because it simply restrain the view with regard to cities that are considered significant or irrelevant and simply take them off the map of analysis-consequently making the cities null theoretically (Taylor, 2004). Appreciating the role of globalization in the growth of city life emphasize a diversity of social and economic networks, overlapping to occasion complex and dynamic urban societies. Some firms seemingly prefer to be situated near one another, and the importance of co-location, or proximity, in certain regions of cities has been overly explored (King, 2004). The position held by Robinson helps in closer scrutiny of the global cities argument as presented by Saskia Sassen. It makes one to critically explore the view of both writers and hence gain a deeper understanding of growth of cities and the relevance of any other city that considered insignificant. Any sociologist scholar who is interested in establishing the truth about evolution of cities and their importance will find both Robinson and Sassen theories very insightful in his exploration of literature in socially. Conclusion Both Jennifer Robinson and Saskia Sassen are renowned scholars who have given their invaluable contributions in the realm of sociology. The mega-cities approaches as advanced by Sassen in the global cities argument emphasize the use of cities as transnational centers and their connections in the global economy. Delivery of producer and financial services has been emphasized from this perspective. Robinson highlights the limiting factor of the global cities theory and addresses the hindrance of the potential of contemporary urban theory. Robinson illustrates the example of Lusaka in Zambia which has had a pre-historic significance to other cities since the pre-colonial period. The explanation by Jennifer Robinson helps interested scholars to understand the essence of such interpretations as far as urban theory is concerned. While Sassen draws the attention of the world to the vital aspects that makes cities to be considered as global, Robinsons highlights an important aspect about the limitations of the mega-cities theory. In the end, a deeper understanding of evolution of cities is attained. References Allen, J. 2002, Symbolic Economies: The culturation of Economic knowledge, in du Gay and Pyke, p.39-58. Barbara, P.E., 2009, City Lights, Third Edition, New York, Oxford University Press. Bennett, S. and Butler, J., eds 2000, Locality regeneration & diversities, Bristol, Intellectual Books. P.157. Bouteligier, S., 2012, Global Cities and Networks for Global Environmental Governance, Routledge, London.pg.11. Bridge, G., 2005, Reason in the city of difference: Pragmatism, Communicative Action and Contemporary Urbanism, London, Routledge. 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