Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Secondary Cities And The Global Economy, Xiangming Chen, Ahmed Kanna

Faculty Scholarship

Cities operate today in a more complex, indeed, global world. Cities help shape the global economy and culture, and are affected by it as they grow or decline. Cities change in varying ways in response to local and extra-local conditions. In this article, we address the understudied but distinctive conditions and roles of so-called secondary cities in the global economy. The critical importance of many secondary cities stems from and sustains their historical path of development and their shifting positions in national and global urban systems.