Global City and Migration: A Critical Review for Sydney, Australia

Abstract

Addressing the critique that the global city discourse should tackle the important issue of migration, this article utilizes Sydney as a case study to substantiate and advance the debates. It is a comprehensive literature review on the global Sydney discourse and migration in global Sydney. Concerning global Sydney, it addresses Sydney's rise as a global city and the economic, social, and spatial transformations. Concerning migration, it addresses its increased scale and complexity, spatial settlement and movement, and social polarization and spatial inequality. The article identifies two gaps in the literature: Missing migration in the global Sydney discourse, and failure to address the interplay between global Sydney and migration. Based upon the thematic patterns of the literature, and the identified gaps, some critical reflections are made to suggest a future research agenda — utilizing global Sydney as a meaningful spatial scale for contemporary migration analysis, and developing the analytical frameworks and methodologies that integrate both global Sydney and migration research.