American cities, global networks: mapping the multiple geographies of globalization in the Americas

Abstract

The mapping of advanced producer and financial service firms across global cities began to increase understanding of the role of cities in global governance, the presence and influence of cities in the shifting architecture of global political economy, and the role of globalization in shaping the landscape of local and regional governance. The literature that emerged from such studies has also emphasized 1) increasing levels of inequality in global cities and 2) attendant contests over local outcomes of globalization while seeking other ways of measuring and articulating the emergence of globalizing cities. Analyzing location strategies in other sectors can speak to these issues. This paper extends methodology common to the global cities literature to map non-governmental organization (NGO) and energy corporation offices in the Americas, focusing on the convergence and divergence of these networks with those of advanced producer and financial services firms. Mapping all three sectors might reveal multiple geographies of globalization in the Americas. Because globalizing cities have become the centers of integrated world capital, radical poverty, and environmental injustice, studies of poverty in the Americas must take seriously the urban centers that increasingly have become the hub of economic and ideological flows. The urban location strategies of advanced producer and financial services, global NGOs, and global energy corporations must be understood in order to grapple more fully with issues of inequality in American cities.