This classic work chronicles how New York, London, and Tokyo became command centers for the global economy and in the process underwent a series of massive and parallel changes. What distinguishes Sassen's theoretical framework is the emphasis on the formation of cross-border dynamics through which these cities and the growing number of other global cities begin to form strategic transnational networks. All the core data in this new edition have been updated, while the preface and epilogue discuss the relevant trends in globalization since the book originally came out in 1991.

This book examines Tokyo’s changes, current challenges, and future trends through a new kind of regional geography and serves as an important source of comprehensive information about the past, present, and future perspectives of Tokyo as a global city. Regional geography relies on two main approaches. The traditional one addresses each geographical element of a region individually and in depth, in a descriptive and static manner. The other focuses on a region’s specific phenomena and realities as a starting point and proceeds to identify the region’s constituent elements and their interactions, which it records and explains in a systematic and dynamic manner. The present volume, unlike its predecessors, relies on the dynamic approach and endeavors to offer a fresh view of Tokyo’s new and diverse geographical realities, analyzed in a holistic, systematic manner allowing identification of its specific features. The book covers a broad range of topics including landform variations and volcanic activity, biodiversity concerns, transportation management, waste management, population issues, religious functions, and urban tourism, all of which facilitate understanding of the unique characteristics of Tokyo. Extensive views from different fields of studies make the book a valuable reference to comprehend both the development of Tokyo into a global city and its sustainability.

This book examines heritage-led regeneration and decision-making processes in Tokyo’s urban centres of Nihonbashi and Marunouchi. Detailing some of the city’s most prominent and recent redevelopment projects, Jiewon Song recognizes key institutions and actors; their collective actions as placemakers; and how they project the authenticity of urban places in planning processes. Song argues that heritage-led regeneration tends to monopolize authenticity by weakening the visibility of other cultural and historic qualities in urban places. Authenticity consequently turns into a singular entity leading to the homogenization of urban places. As cities increasingly seek authenticity in the urban age, nation-states initiate top-down processes to achieve such ends, interweaving nationalism and national narratives into placemaking practices. In this fashion, Song challenges existing scholarship on urban conservation, global cities and the notion of authenticity.

The world today is far less a global village than a “global city”, as global network of multidimensional urban spaces of congestion prominently forming – and also formed by – globalization. But the relevance of cities is nothing but new. They were essential for culture and civilization worldwide, they allowed a centralization of power and knowledge and they were crucial for the division of labor and for the organization of mass demand. Further, as places of intense and continuous interactions, cities are the locations par excellence for global history to take place. Thus, there is a need to study the history of cities in connection with the history of globalization from this perspective. This book is dedicated to contribute to the still underdeveloped but growing literature connecting the history of cities worldwide and their relation to global processes. The authors do so from various disciplinary backgrounds and by referring to different times and places. We visit ancient Alexandria, nineteenth century Zanzibar, and modern-day São Paolo, among others, and we view these cities not only in their globality, but also through their heritage, their economic relevance, their architecture, or financial flows connecting them. Further, the book also contains systematic considerations about “global city”, especially the general role of cities in development, cities in global history teaching, and cities' relationships to global commodity chains.

The book provides a comprehensive appraisal of the interplay between global structural adjustments and the changing role and configuration of Asia's world cities at the close of the twentieth century, with emphasis on the functional importance and complexity of world cities in the global and regional economies.

This book examines the urban fabric of contemporary Tokyo as a valuable demonstration of permeable, inclusive, and adaptive urban patterns that required neither extensive master planning nor corporate urbanism to develop. These urban patterns are emergent: that is, they are the combined result of numerous modifications and appropriations of space by small agents interacting within a broader socio-economic ecosystem. Together, they create a degree of urban intensity and liveliness that is the envy of the world's cities. This book examines five of these patterns that appear conspicuously throughout Tokyo: yokocho alleyways, multi-tenant zakkyo buildings, undertrack infills, low-rise dense neighborhoods, and the river-like ankyo streets. Unlike many of the discussions on Tokyo that emphasise cultural uniqueness, this book aims at transcultural validity, with a focus on empirical analysis of the spatial and social conditions that allow these patterns to emerge. The authors of Emergent Tokyo acknowledge the distinct character of Tokyo without essentialising or fetishising it, offering visitors, architects, and urban policy practitioners an unparalleled understanding of Tokyo's urban landscape.

During the twentieth century, Japan was transformed from a poor, primarily rural country into one of the world's largest industrial powers and most highly urbanised countries. Interestingly, while Japanese governments and planners borrowed carefully from the planning ideas and methods of many other countries, Japanese urban planning, urban governance and cities developed very differently from those of other developed countries. Japan's distinctive patterns of urbanisation are partly a product of the highly developed urban system, urban traditions and material culture of the pre-modern period, which remained influential until well after the Pacific War. A second key influence has been the dominance of central government in urban affairs, and its consistent prioritisation of economic growth over the public welfare or urban quality of life. André Sorensen examines Japan's urban trajectory from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, paying particular attention to the weak development of Japanese civil society, local governments, and land development and planning regulations.