The Economic and Financial Dimensions

Abstract

This chapter1 discusses the relationship between established measurements of service-related world city formation on the one hand and world city functions under global capitalism on the other. A common approach with regard to the former is to measure centrality in office networks of firms that produce advanced producer services (APS) such as finance, accountancy and auditing, advertising, law, and management consultancy (Taylor, 2004b). world city functions, on the other hand, have been associated with command and control (Friedmann, 1986) or the production of central functions in a global economy (Sassen, 1991). While both dimensions have been discussed somewhat autonomously in this volume (see Derudder et al. on measuring world city formation and Parnreiter on how to interpret world city functions), this chapter’s argument is that high connectivity or centrality through the former not necessarily entails a fundamental position in the latter. To reinvigorate the debate on this fundamental cog in conceptualizing world city formation, it is useful to draw on Taylor’s (2000) notion of ‘monopolization through regionalization’. Taylor explains how under conditions of contemporary globalization world cities2 are the sites where a ‘monopoly of place’ (in the words of Scott, 1997) or in Taylor’s words ‘monopoly by regionalization’ can emerge: ‘In services such as finance, accountancy and corporate law, practitioners are not just servicing “global capital”; they are creating new products based upon their unique knowledge collectivities.