City-Regions

The function and influence of cities has changed throughout history.  The world has transitioned from a collection of city-states to nation-states and now to global cities.  In nation-states economic power was territorialized and rooted in place. Now in global cities economic power has become de-territorialized. Even though capital is mobile and no loner rooted in a specific geographic location, place is still important. The function of place has changed. Cities are no longer dependent on production agglomeration, but serve new functions in the global economy. Global cities today are systemic nodes in the world economy.  In his article Globalization and the Rise of City-regions, Allen J. Scott explores the economic dynamic of city-regions. He writes that in the new economic order agglomerations occur when there are high transactions cost for production causing interconnected firms to converge, where the transaction costs are outputs are low with expanding markets, and where increasing returns leads to more growth(819). Scott questions and explores the challenges of governing these city-regions that are globally interconnected. He raises the concern for marginalized and dispossessed migrants that are a part of this interconnected system.  Scott calls for an alternative definition of citizenship as necessary to protect the rights of these low-wage migrants; “An alternative definition of citizenship, one that is more fully in harmony with the unfolding new world system, would presumably assign basic political entitlements and obligations to individuals not so much as an absolute birthright, but as some function of their changing involvement and practical allegiances in given geographic contexts”(823).