The contributors illustrate what twin analytical and practical challenges emerge from juxtaposing cultural, economic, historical, postcolonial, virtual, architectural, literary, security and political stances to the concept of the 'global city'.

How Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China deal with such urban environmental issues as ports, goods movement, air pollution, water quality, transportation, and public space. Over the past four decades, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and key urban regions of China have emerged as global cities—in financial, political, cultural, environmental, and demographic terms. In this book, Robert Gottlieb and Simon Ng trace the global emergence of these urban areas and compare their responses to a set of six urban environmental issues. These cities have different patterns of development: Los Angeles has been the quintessential horizontal city, the capital of sprawl; Hong Kong is dense and vertical; China's new megacities in the Pearl River Delta, created by an explosion in industrial development and a vast migration from rural to urban areas, combine the vertical and the horizontal. All three have experienced major environmental changes in a relatively short period of time. Gottlieb and Ng document how each has dealt with challenges posed by ports and the movement of goods, air pollution (Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and urban China are all notorious for their hazardous air quality), water supply (all three places are dependent on massive transfers of water) and water quality, the food system (from seed to table), transportation, and public and private space. Finally they discuss the possibility of change brought about by policy initiatives and social movements.

For millennia, urban centers were pivots of power and trade that ruled and linked rural majorities. After 1950, explosive urbanization led to unprecedented urban majorities around the world. That transformation--inextricably tied to rising globalization--changed almost everything for nearly everybody: production, politics, and daily lives. In this book, seven eminent scholars look at the similar but nevertheless divergent courses taken by Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Montreal, Los Angeles, and Houston in the twentieth century, attending to the challenges of rapid growth, the gains and limits of popular politics, and the profound local effects of a swiftly modernizing, globalizing economy. By exploring the rise of these six cities across five nations, New World Cities investigates the complexities of power and prosperity, difficulty and desperation, while reckoning with the social, cultural, and ethnic dynamics that mark all metropolitan areas. Contributors: Michele Dagenais, Mark Healey, Martin V. Melosi, Bryan McCann, Joseph A. Pratt, George J. Sanchez, and John Tutino.

In How to Build a Global City, Michele Acuto considers the rise of a new generation of so-called global cities—Singapore, Sydney, and Dubai—and the power that this concept had in their ascent, in order to analyze the general relationship between global city theory and its urban public policy practice. The global city is often invoked in theory and practice as an ideal model of development and a logic of internationalization for cities the world over. But the global city also creates deep social polarization and challenges how much local planning can achieve in a world economy. Presenting a unique elite ethnography in Singapore, Sydney, and Dubai, Acuto discusses the global urban discourses, aspirations, and strategies vital to the planning and management of such metropolitan growth. The global city, he shows, is not one single idea, but a complex of ways to imagine a place to be global and aspirations to make it so, often deeply steeped in politics. His resulting book is a call to reconcile proponents and critics of the global city toward a more explicit engagement with the politics of this global urban imagination.

In a rapidly urbanizing and globalized world, cities have been the epicentres of COVID-19 (coronavirus). The virus has spread to virtually all parts of the world; first, among globally connected cities, then through community transmission and from the city to the countryside. This report shows that the intrinsic value of sustainable urbanization can and should be harnessed for the wellbeing of all. It provides evidence and policy analysis of the value of urbanization from an economic, social and environmental perspective. It also explores the role of innovation and technology, local governments, targeted investments and the effective implementation of the New Urban Agenda in fostering the value of sustainable urbanization.

Why have some cities become great global urban centers, and what cities will be future leaders? From Athens and Rome in ancient times to New York and Singapore today, a handful of cities have stood out as centers of global economic, military, or political power. In the twenty-first century, the number of truly global cities is greater than ever before, reflecting the globalization of both economic and political power. In Global Cities: A Short History, Greg Clark, an internationally renowned British urbanist, examines the enduring forces—such as trade, migration, war, and technology—that have enabled some cities to emerge from the pack into global leadership. Much more than a historical review, Clark’s book looks to the future, examining the trends that are transforming cities around the world as well as the new challenges all global cities, increasingly, will face. Which cities will be the global leaders of tomorrow? What are the common issues and opportunities they will face? What kinds of leadership can make these cities competitive and resilient? Clark offers answers to these and similar questions in a book that will be of interest to anyone who lives in or is affected by the world’s great urban areas.

This book examines the challenges of urbanization in the global south and the linkages between urbanization, economic development and urban poverty from the perspectives of cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It focuses on various aspects of urbanization ranging from food security and public services like sanitation, water and electricity to the finances of cities and externalities associated with the urbanization process. The volume also highlights the importance of participatory urban governance for cities in India with comparative perspectives from other countries. It further focuses on the urbanization of poverty, livelihood in urban areas, overconsumption and nutrition and ecology. Based on primary data, the chapters in the volume review trends, opportunities, challenges, governance and strategies of several countries at different levels of urbanization, with several case studies from India. This multidisciplinary volume will be of great interest to researchers and students of development studies, sociology, economics and urban planning and policy. It will also be useful for policymakers, think tanks and practitioners in the area of urbanization.