Territories in globalization

→ Is globalization leading to a more united world ?

I) The globalized world: cores and uneven integration

A) Three major cores with different characteristics

Some group of states or regions have a strong economical, military and cultural influence on the world.

How do you call such a map?

Anamorphosis maps of the world show 3 major areas: North America, European Union and Eastern Asia.

Let's open a bracket about the indicators we use. What are the indicators which are used here?... In English !

→ The GDP is the market value of all officially recognized final goods and services produced within a country in a year. GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living. Sometimes, you'll see GDP in « PPP »: what does it mean ?

→ PPP means « purchasing parity product »... which means that the local cost of life has been taken into account, thus making comparisons between countries more reliable. The GDP in PPP per capita is the indicator which is taken into account to calculate the HDI... which is... ?

→ the Human Development Indicator is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income indices. Does the HDI lead to a different ranking?

→ Actually, not really: very rich countries are also the most developed countries. But in some precise cases there can be some differences: do you know which ones?

→ Cuba is quite a poor country with a « not so bad » level of development (2013: 59th HDI/92nd GDP). Saudi Arabia is the contrary: a quite rich country with a « not so good » level of development (2013: 57th HDI/28th GDP) Ok, let's close the bracket now...

The importance of these 3 main areas can be seen on a map of the world trade.

Be careful: in the 80's, people used to talk about the « Triad »...

It was an idea of a Japanese scientist which found a great success in France, but not in the English-speaking world...

And moreover, it is now widely out of date since the rise of China.

So if you have to use this word, always say « Triad plus China »

1) The 3 major cores

Reasons to be

powerful Demography Economical

influence

Military and

diplomatic influence

Scientific and

cultural influence Powerful places

North America:

everything to be a superpower

USA + Canada = 350 M, only 5% of the world's population

(6,7 incl. Mexico). BUT high standard of living and

demographic growth (thanks to immigration).

Many natural resources. ¼ of the world's

production, 1/3 of the 500 biggest TNCs Wall Street: first stock

exchange, from far Dollar = international currency

First military power, able to get involved quickly all over the world

Worldwide influence: language, research, medias, Internet, music,...

European Union:

unachieved superpower

EU: 500 M, 7 %

of the world's population. Getting older

23% of the world's

production. Many TNCs, dynamic exchanges inside

the area

Some powerful countries but no military union

Good cultural influence (medias, research) but behind

the USA. Strong touristic attractiveness

Eastern Asia: a

rising area

1,5 billion, 21 % of the world's population

High level of poverty: 400 M people with < 2$/day

population could get older

22% of the world's production. Chinese growth is necessary

to the world's economy. Growing number of TNCs

Important military efforts from China

No union between the different powerful countries

Limited cultural influence Rising research

2) Issues and tendencies

•Northern America: n°1 but...

-the American model of economic growth, very polluting, can no longer be a model for the rest of the world

-The USA have to face a huge deficit, they rely on Chinese loans

-Mexico is part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) but is also clearly less rich and developed

• The European Union: assertion or crisis?

-it’s a unique example of a 28 countries union, with a will to limit uneven development

-the enlargement to central and eastern Europe has been good for economic growth, and the European Union would like to do the same with Turkey

-the 2008 crisis showed that this union remained difficult to rule and very uneven, heterogeneous

• Eastern Asia:

→ on what relies the rise of this area?

In the early 1960s, the British colony of Hong Kong became the first of the four Asian Tiger economies by developing strong textile and manufacturing industries and by the 1970s, had solidified itself as a global financial center and was quickly turning into a developed economy. Following in the footsteps of Hong Kong, the nations of South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore soon quickly industrialized thanks to government policies. By 1997, the four Asian Tiger economies joined Japan as East Asia's developed economies. Present growth in East Asia has now shifted to China and the Tiger Cub Economies of the Southeast Asian countries of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Since the end of the 20th century, Japan's role as the principal economic power in the region has shifted to the Four Asian Tiger economies and more recently, China, which became world's second largest economy in 2010.

• Eastern Asia:

-to understand its rise we have to talk about the « flying goose paradigm », a theory of the 30's which postulated that Asian nations will catch up with the West as a part of a regional hierarchy where the production of commoditized goods would continuously move from the more advanced countries to the less advanced ones... and which has been widely confirmed by what happened !

In fact, we can observe that:

-there are more and more industrialized countries in Asia

-there is a shift from labor-intensive production to capital-intensive activities

-We also have to remember that contrasts among China are still very strong, which is both an advantage (cheap workforce) and a challenge (risks of social conflicts)

-this is also the only area with strong political divisions, with tenses between countries. North Korea is also a major problem.

At least, EU and Asia strongly rely on the rest of the world for their raw material supply, which is not the case for the USA.

B) Centers and open places in these areas of power

→Let's move to a medium or large scale:

There are some important nodes in the areas we already studied: the global cities.

Global cities are powerful cities thanks to the headquarters of TNCs, to the importance of FIRE activities (which means Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) or banking activities, but also thanks to their creative industries and their cultural influence.

Decisions taken in these cities have consequences all over the world.

These global cities can be ranked by different ways.

Here's a ranking made by a university:

Here's another one made by the magazine « Foreign Policy »

In these global cities, we will find always the same kind of landscape:

-Central Business Districts (here's Chicago) concentrating economical power

-huge airline hubs (Heathrow airport, London) allowing easy travels to the rest of the world

-research centers situated in the suburbs (here's Tsukuba, near Tokyo)

Around the most powerful global cities we can find some megalopolises, which are chains of metropolitan areas and include dozens of million people.

There are 3 main megalopolises (according to the French geography program):

-the American megalopolis

-the European megalopolis

-the « East-Asian megalopolitan archipelago »

1) Similarities between the three main megalopolises

• A high number of global cities

Pay attention to the fact that, on this map, the size of the circles is linked to the power of the city, not to its population

• Busy port regions

(In French, we use the word « interface », but in English it has no geographical sense...)

All megalopolises need busy port regions which enable them to be closely connected to the rest of the world.

What we call in French (but which is not used in English !!!) the « Northern Range » is the port region of European megalopolis

2) What's different between the 3 megalopolises

• The American megalopolis

It's the most heavily urbanized region of North America, spanning from Boston to Washington, and supporting 55 million inhabitants. Sometimes, this area is grouped with the Great Lakes Megalopolis (another 55 millions).

Its advantages:

-Financial power

New York stock exchanges stay from far the first ones in the world. Most of raw materials are listed (=cotées) on the Chicago Board of Trade.

-political power: White House in Washington, United Nations in NY

-cultural influence: famous universities, such as Harvard, but also artistic creation

• The European megalopolis covers a space between London and Milano, and between Paris and Hamburg, around the Rhine valley.

It has about 100 million inhabitants

Espace rhénan

Its advantages:

-political and financial power of London and Paris

-internationally recognized universities (Oxford, HEC)

-easy travelling thanks to open borders and good infrastructure

-cultural wealth which makes it the first touristic place in the world

• The « East-Asian megalopolitan archipelago »

-the Japanese megalopolis is still the most important one, with 100 million inhabitants and a outstanding network

Trains à grande vitesse « Shinkansen »

It is dominated by the world's biggest city, Tokyo (33 million inhabitants)

Tokyo Sky Tree tower, 634 m

-why talking about « archipelago » ?

Economical relations between the Japanese megalopolis and the Korean, Taiwanese global cities, and also Singapore have been increasing and are now really close.

There are other megalopolises which are growing quickly, among which:

*the Pearl River Delta (between 70 to 100 million inhabitants)

*the Yangtze River Delta, around Shanghai (about 80 million inhabitants)

Those « cores » are clearly ruling the world

What about the rest of the world?

C) The rest of the world: an uneven integration

1) How to get integrated

A poor country has to increase its commercial relations with rich countries...

• ...by selling raw materials

Raw materials enable to earn money, because the growing demand makes prices grow

But...

-they are rarely enough to make a country really rich (uranium in Niger)

-there can be wars because of them, to control them

-the money is often misappropriated and misused: Russia sells oil and gaz instead of trying to be attractive by modernizing its economy

So most of these countries are only partially integrated.

• ...by being part of the IDL

They attract TNCs inward investments, mostly thanks to their cheap and « obedient » workforce (« » because people have no right to disagree...)

Textile workers in Bangladesh

Many countries (Morocco, Turkey, Vietnam, Bangladesh) try to follow the way East Asia went, increasing slowly the skills of their workforce to attract new investments.

In spite of strong inequalities and hard working conditions, this process enables economic growth and improvement of the living conditions, transforming slowly these countries into consumption markets... and thus attracting new investments.

2) An accelerating integration

•Many big emerging countries are now major economic agents of the world: Brazil, India, South Africa are, with China of course, asserting their power, in spite of internal malfunctioning and inequalities.

Powerful global cities (Mumbai, Sao Paulo) have a growing influence in the world

« positive » view of São Paulo

• Even if these countries need investments from rich countries' TNCs, their demographic weight and their vast territories enable them to be more and more independent, and even enable them to invest abroad.

This is accelerating the integration of territories which had been excluded till recently: China is directly exploiting many African resources

Of course, integration does not mean paradise...

3) Excluded countries

Some countries stay almost completely appart from the globalized economy.

These countries are at war (eg. Somalia) or claim that they are self-sufficient (North Korea). The living conditions there are really hard.

cores mégalopolis

Main global city emerging power Brazil

South Africa

India

China

Brazil

Chicago New York

Mexico

Sao Paulo Johannesburg

Mumbai

Paris

London

Tokyo Beijing

Hong kong

Singapore

II) A global City: London

A) the power of London is linked to its past

Great Britain was the most powerful colonial Empire, and London was its capital. Even if this Empire doesn't exist anymore, its legacy is important:

-London kept close diplomatic relations with a lot of countries, especially with countries of the Commonwealth.

So we can say that London has a strong political influence

-English is spoken all over the world, which makes London a possible destination for migrations.

As a result, London is a multicultural and multiethnic city

-London also remains the center of the world, thanks to its huge airlines hub, with 6 airports connected to 390 destinations and 135 million passengers per year.

But above all, London managed to keep its financial power, which remains really strong:

B) A global city through its economic power and cultural influence

1)One of the first economic centers in the world

Finance and insurance are leading the economic power of London

London is the third stock exchange in the world, and even ranks first for transportation insurances and currency (devises) market

The London Stock Exchange, in its brand new 2004 buildings (on the right-hand side)

Llyod’s headquarters (insurance stock exchange)

• Its advantages : -good position in terms of time zones -in the heart of a network inherited from colonization -English language, which is the world language for trade -an activity strongly supported by the political power

We can say that London kept a « know-how » widely recognized all over the world

2) The cultural influence

• Thanks to « creative industry »

-first European place for edition

-famous newspapers (the Times, the Guardian)

-large cultural supply

But also a university city if we include Oxford and Cambridge, which are only 50 km away from London

• Thanks to tourism: 23 million tourists per year

Tower Bridge

3) The 2012 Olympics, or how to show London power to the world

Thanks to the Olympic games, London showed its dynamism to the world

The Olympic park was build in a poor neighborhood of the East End, so as to renew it

The Olympic village was widely transformed into housing of people

C) The centers of the power of London: the example of the City

The City is the historical business district of London

There can be found the main financial activities

architectural dynamism

…which makes year after year the landscape more vertical

This dynamism is the proof of the preeminence of the City, even if there is a second business district in Canary Wharf

D) A global city in its environment

1) At a local scale: the metropolitan area of a global city

London is leading the first urban area of Europe, with 12 million inhabitants, but also the richest one, with a GDP of 460 billion dollars (as much as Austrian or Argentinian GDP… !)

Town planning operations are driven to fight poverty (eg. Olympic village)

But what is the consequence of these operations?

But these planning operations also reject the poor to the outer suburbs...

We can find in London the same paradox than in most global cities: some neighborhoods are closer from the world than from outer suburbs…

2) London, capital of the UK, European capital?

•London dominates the UK:

The Greater London supports 14% of the british population, but:

-20% of GDP

-50% of legal activities (activités juridiques)

-81% of broadcasting activities !

It seems to be huge, but in a way it’s normal: in the UK, only London is able to attract those kind of very rare activities.

• Ambiguous relationship with Europe:

-close links: with its 4 airports, the Eurostar line, London is perfectly connected to the mainland.

London attracts students and workers from all Europe: there may be between 300 to 400 000 French in London

-a deep fondness for independence

London is also the less European of EU’s global cities. The British government strongly defends its monetary and banking independence from the will of EU control !

Conclusion :

London is a global city with a strong dynamism, il spite of local inequalities.

At the London scale we can find some of the issues of the globalization, with integrated and excluded spaces, and with a slow trend to progress.