There are essentially two concepts of what a global city can be. One is the “global city of ideas” referenced in Freeman’s “Working Class New York”. In post-WWII New York, globalization took place within the city’s borders as people of different ethnicities interfaced and shared with one another, creating the metaphorical “tossed salad” we know today.
Fast forward several decades, and we see, through David Harvey’s lens, a pre-9/11 New York mired in the second type of globalization. This one sees New York going outside itself, in a sense, by outsourcing and generally interacting in a very negative way with the rest of the world. What happened?
The important thing I took away from the Harvey piece was not Harvey’s theory itself, but his reminder of what really makes New York great. It is not the fact that we are global in scope, that we have stakes in transnational businesses or foreign markets or even our collective financial power. It is the fact that we once were, and still are, a group of diverse people coming together to create something remarkable: A community in which we keep our own identities, yet are very much integrated and part of one another’s lives. 9/11 truly did bring this out in us. As Harvey points out, there were no commercials – which generally advertise consumer goods produced elsewhere. The news was simply about us. New Yorkers who were not affected sympathized with those who were; for just a little while, in drawing into ourselves and separating ourselves a bit from the rest of the world, we reconnected with each other and reminded ourselves how great our city was even without resorting to borders beyond our own.
So, what it means to define New York as a global city really depends on which hat the city chooses to wear. We can be the global city of diversity, embracing all types of people in one city, and drawing the admiration of others. Or we can be the outsourcing, power-hungry global city, drawing criticism. I hope we will choose the first option even in a time of peace, without any wakeup calls such as September 11th to push us in one direction over the other.
