Global Cities in Peripheral Countries: Argentina in the New International Labor Division

ULISES GIROLIMO; PATRICIO FELDMAN

Global Cities in Latin America and Asia: Welcome to the Twenty-first Century

University of Michigan Press

Lugar: Michigan; Año: 2022;

The global city concept, introduced by Saskia Sassen in her book The global city: New York, London, Tokyo, originally published in 1991, and developed in her further work, stimulated the proliferation of different studies and research on multiple dimensions of the urban phenomenon. This concept is mainly based on the growth of financial markets, the expansion of international trade in services, and the new flows of foreign direct investment which modify the existing urban hierarchies (Sassen 2001; 2003; 2007). There is a "new form of organization of economic activity, with a central role in modifying the general conditions of accumulation, work and social reproduction" (Cuervo 2001, 119).This paper takes a critical approach to the global city concept from a Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) viewpoint. It begins by reflecting on the theoretical contribution of the global city approach to analyze the LAC urban situation and the particularities that these cities show when they are inserted into a globalized and increasingly informational economy (Castells 1999). Later it identifies the main aspects that characterize the positions occupied by countries, regions and cities in the new economy. It points out three experiences that represent different ways in which LAC cities are inserted in that new economy: a) as global cities that attract financial capital, provide specialized services and develop cutting-edge technology; b) as knowledge cities that become the innovative environments of the 21st century; c) as enclaves that provide the lowest value chain services in the informational development mode. The analysis focuses on the Argentinian case, specifically on Buenos Aires city, considered a global city by different analysts, where informationalism is strongly developed, a model of urban governance characterized as urban entrepreneurship was established (Harvey 1989) and was configured as an innovative environment (Castells and Hall 1994) that concentrates the development of technological and innovative activities. Finally, the paper describes the main challenges of the cities in the context of new technological trends developed in the last decade, and outlines some considerations to design an alternative project, different from the dominant urban governance model.