Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

One of the great challenges facing large, diverse metropolitan economies is how to build and maintain sustainable and resilient cities. For several years now, people have recognized the critical and expanding role of “global cities.” Although Saskia Sassen’s initial conceptualization focused on leading financial centers---London, New York, and Tokyo---the notion has developed to encompass broader ideas about how diverse metropolitan economies serve as regional nodes in a global network (Sassen 2001) . These global cities serve as the engines behind national and regional economic growth. Increasingly, academics and policy advocates have argued that global cities constitute the most important interconnected …