From global city makers to global city-shapers: Migration industries in the global city networks

Abstract

Recently, increasing migrant-led diversity of urban spaces can be expected to be especially observed in global cities, where global flows of capital, goods and people are concentrated. Although this connection between the global phenomenon of transnational migration and the local socio-spatial impacts on the cities appears evident, empirical research on the ‘relationship of migrants and cities’ remains underexplored. Discussions on global city makers have focused primarily on global economic actors, and have paid little attention to actors involved in shaping these global cities locally. This paper sheds new light on the role of migration industries in shaping global cities on the local level, being based empirically on qualitative interviews with transnational migrants and service providers in Tokyo. It discusses how the novel constellation of service firms for the transnational migration from above and below, that is, corporate migration industry in contrast to the conventional migration industry of labour migration, not only contributes to the global flow of transnational migrations into specific cities, but also draws them into specific socio-spatial patterns within the local urban space. By bringing these different types of migration industries conceptually together, it illustrates how socio-spatial diversification processes within global cities are embedded in the global economy (global city makers) but also locally directed by intermediary actors of migration industries (global city shapers). Embedding migration industries into the global cities perspective, it bridges the gap on urban transformation from the global to the local.