The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo.

Sassen aims to - unpack the concept of "the city" (p. xviii) - as a unit of analysis in sociology and economics from a global perspective. The scope of this endeavor is quite staggering and she has to bring an number of different fields under the same conceptual umbrella in order to capture the elusive character of 'the city'. Her method is the painstaking analysis of a huge amount of data from a vast array of sources. This might seem unnecessary to some people who are more interested in bold visions of the future á la Manuel Castells or Antonio Negri. The thing about Castells or Negri though is that you need a leap of faith to interpret the world according to their views. Sassen is more boring to read but one can always rely on her providing the data leading up to her conclusions. This is crucial to anyone wanting to take a stab at the interdisciplinary phenomenon of the global city and use availible data for comparison. The thorough research foundation of the book makes it easy to link the issues to areas that otherwise would be quite far apart such as urban planning and service management. Personally I think the most important message is that place and location matters maybe even more nowadays than it used to when production and consumption was explicitly bound by the physical limitations of our world.In all I think that this book is a must read for anyone even remotely interested i urban matters. It's a bit tough to get through though and the visual presentation of the data could have been better, hence rendering the book a four rather than a five star grade.

A very good choice for anyone interested in social or/and city matters. Saskia Sassen's (University of Chicago and London School of Economics) books are translated in 16 langueges and her comments have appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde Diplomatique and the Financial Times among others. She claims that cities have re-emerged as stategic places for a wide range of projects and dynamics.

This is a sad book. History was very unkkind to this woman. Just when she thought she completed here masterpiece, a book that was supposed to ensure her tenure and fame and all the things that a sociologist may want, everything blew up in her face.Her theory in the original version went like this; Why oh why are there huge concentration of functions in Tokyo, London, New York, when so much IT allows easier communication and remote office and all that? Why do these cities grow, when all the production and other functions gets shipped off to backwater countries?Well, she said, IT allowed the separation of production and management/development. That's why managers remain in cities with their high pay, while actual sweat work goes to third world child labor under measly wages.But why did the cities grow bigger? Well, because cities are the new production centers. Management and stuff requires a lot of legal services and accountants and other services etc that are much easily available in the cities. That's why all those management stuff accumulated in the city.But aren't those activites just leeches to the actual job? They don't create any new value, do they? Aha, she says. But they do! Look at all those financial innovations, like hedge funds and derivatives and stuff! Look how much money they are making! They are not leeches, they are creating new values. You gotta throw away your old ideas about the economy! Only cities can produce that sort of new financial products, and that's why London, NY, Tokyo are growing!There was another brownie point. Her theory went very well with shallow anti-globalism arguments. Managers stay in NY/London with high pays, while at the factories half way around the globe, workers suffer forever under low wage.But exactly when the first edition came out, everything changed.First was the collapse of the Japanese economy, that took down Tokyo with it. Her theory had nothing to prepare or explain this. What happened to the new production? What happened to all those financial innovation? Why didn't that work in Tokyo? In the book, Sassen tries to answer this using various ad-hoc excuses, but the more she does it, the less convincing the original proposition becomes. So it wasn't THAT important, after all? All those theories of yours were only subordinate to those other stuff that you never mentioned before?And yes, what about those innovations? Collapse of LTCM and huge hedge funds etc. since the first edition made finance less glamorous. Arbitrage does increase some efficiency of the market, which does create some value. But they were not the major new "product" to sustain the world.Her theory about the separation of production and management wasn't so hot afterall. Look at Asia, look at China! Concentration of production functions REQUIRED many management and design / development functions to go along with them. Also, the factories did make the workers richer, and as a result, much of Asia and China really became better off. There are dicrepancies, and differences in earnings, but its nothing like what Sassen had described.It's amazing that NOTHING of here original theory remained. In this second version, she tries to pick up the pieces, but they are too completely destroyed to be picked up, and the effort is almost painful to read. I wonder why she even bothered with the second edition. It's not a book worth salvaging in 2001, and it's hardly worth reading, except as a sad but amusing look back at the strange ideas of the past.

Good.

I started reading this with a lot of enthusiasm - the fundamental idea of the 3 world cities forming one electronic megacity is fascinating, and provocative. But - the book disappoints. There is far too much detail, precise numbers where trends are what is needed (precise numbers in appendices, sure) - I have no trouble with numbers if they illuminate, but too many. And exhaustive description in the text of all those who have researched or published in a particular area - (that's what references are for)....What argument there was seemed to be drowned, and the only parts that made much sense were those saying what Sassen planned to do, later in the book - but it never seemed to deliver.In response to the 5 star review " It does not set out to be an entertaining page-turner for the casual reader (I think the previous reviewer somehow had this impression). " I have a degree in sociology and politics; I am not a casual reader.