Global Metropolis Research Articles

Navigating the Challenges of Urbanization: A Case Study of Tokyos Developmental Issues and Strategic Solutions

Abstract: Tokyo, as a leading global metropolis, exemplifies the complex interplay between rapid urban expansion and associated challenges. This paper explores Tokyo's developmental issues since 1950, focusing on population density, land resource shortages, agricultural land decline, waste management, and disaster preparedness. Despite its status as Japans economic, cultural, and administrative center, Tokyo's limited land area and unique geographical constraints present significant hurdles. The study evaluates the city's responses to these challenges through urban planning and policy making, assessing both the effectiveness of existing solutions and areas for improvement. The paper highlights the need for a multifaceted approach involving strategic planning, innovative solutions, and collaborative efforts to enhance Tokyos resilience and sustainability. While providing valuable insights into Tokyos urbanization challenges, the study acknowledges limitations such as inconsistent data availability and the difficulty in measuring policy impacts. Future research should include comparative studies with other global megacities to identify universal and unique urbanization challenges and investigate the long-term effects of specific policies and practices on urban sustainability and quality of life.

Guest Foreword

ABSTRACT In his Foreword to this special issue of SEEIR, the author reflects on the larger significance of the 125th anniversary of the founding in 1899 of the historic Russian department, later Slavonic Division/Slavic and Baltic Division, NYPL. While recognizing the importance of peer European institutions celebrating their centenaries, Kasinec emphasizes the strategic location of the NYPL’s research collection at the very heart of a global metropolis. In reviewing the weighty contributions of his long-time colleagues, Robert H. Davis, Jr., Hee-Gwone Yoo, David Lowe, Bogdan Horbal, and Robert Sink to this special issue, Kasinec gratefully acknowledges his great personal and professional debt owed to the collections, services, and staff of New York’s “people’s palaces.”

Shanghai hukou, English and politics of mobility in China’s globalising economy

Abstract Amidst Shanghai’s transformation into a global metropolis and the resulting influx of internal migration, obtaining Shanghai hukou remains a challenging yet highly coveted socioeconomic aspiration. Simply earning high incomes, even for middle-class migrants, falls short of ensuring the desired level of geographical and social mobility. This article draws from a sociolinguistic ethnography conducted within a Shanghai-based multinational corporation, where migrant employees are compelled to strategise around English proficiency as a form of cultural capital to position themselves as valued neoliberal worker-citizens, driven by ambitions of career advancement and privileged hukou attainment. It argues that in China’s globalising economy, English not only enables multinational companies to stratify employees and select ideal internationalised human capital but also expedites migrant professionals’ acquisition of Shanghai hukou – a symbol of upward mobility in China. By delving into tensions and inequalities at work, this study demonstrates how English, the language of global capitalism, aligns the migrants’ interest in solidifying their middle-class status with Shanghai’s agenda of becoming an Asian-Pacific economic hub.

Great Expectations Great Concepts: Challenge Of The Istanbul Biennial With Popular Discourses Of Global Art World

The international mega exhibition Istanbul Biennial, which was first held in 1987, presents an unconventional exhibition model which has been structured with a choreography dominated by the curator's discourse. Within the framework of different concepts and themes determined by the selected curators, various venues specially determined by the curators were used in each exhibition to clearly reveal and characterize the artists' attitudes towards the subject. In this paper, the concepts and titles of the Istanbul Biennial held between 1987-2019 were scrutinized and the themes put forward by the curators for the exhibition were discussed in a certain categorization. This categorization is discussed under the three main headings: 'Global metropolis', 'political and cultural issues and borders', and 'ecology and human activities' and the exhibitions were discussed under these headings. Based on the analysis of these topics a question occurred: "Did the curators try to manipulate the concepts of the themes?" In addition, it has been discussed how much the Biennial titles and topics contribute to the idea of being a part of the global mainstream, which points to the initial founding goals of the Biennial.

High-resolution remotely sensed data characterizes indices of avifaunal habitat on private residential lands in a global metropolis

Urban ecosystems are dominated by private lands which poses a significant hurdle to performing field-based assessment of wildlife. An alternative approach is to characterize indices of animal habitat in difficult-to-access areas using data from airborne remote sensing platforms. Characterizing indices of wildlife habitat using remotely sensed data is common in natural systems but has received less attention within urban ecosystems. We tested the utility of using remotely sensed data from high-resolution airborne sensors, including LiDAR, a measure of vertical habitat structure, NDVI, a measure of greenness, image texture, a measure of horizontal habitat structure, and parcel level land-cover data, along with field-based street-tree measurements to predict bird abundance and richness across Greater Los Angeles, California, USA. We surveyed birds and gathered street-tree data on public lands of residential neighborhoods and processed the remote sensing data in 50-m and 300-m circular buffers of bird survey locations to capture data primarily on private, residential land across three winter field seasons (2016–18, 2019/20) at 23 locations along a tree-canopy cover gradient. Data from LiDAR processed as an index for the density of trees summarized in the 50-m and 300-m extents were the strongest univariate predictors of avifaunal abundance and richness explaining 75 % and 74 % of the likelihood in fitted models. NDVI, image texture, land cover, and street-tree density measures were weaker univariate predictors than models fitted with LiDAR data. Models including LiDAR and ground-based street-tree measurements accounted for upwards of 80 % of the variability in avifaunal abundance and richness, particularly for bird species associated with trees and shrubs. We recommend the prioritization of high-resolution remote sensing data, particularly LiDAR, in combination with field-based habitat measures e.g., street trees, to characterize indices of avifaunal habitat on public and private lands of cities, which could help to improve our understanding of the distribution of birds across urban areas.

Plant Infrastructure

This essay analyzes Miami as a place where plants are a major component of urban infrastructure. The centrality of tropical plants to the growth of Miami connects that city to the history of empire, where control of plant matter was the violent model for the standardization and distribution practices of modern infrastructure. In Miami, the US Department of Agriculture established a Plant Introduction Garden in 1898, with “Agricultural Explorer” David Fairchild activating networks connecting India, Kew Gardens, and Washington to bring mostly Asian tropical fruits, shrubs, and flowers to South Florida. A close reading of archives of botanical gardens, plant nurseries, and community organizations shows that Miami plant infrastructure was created jointly by these elite political/scientific networks and by vernacular, informal networks of Black labor migration and horticultural know-how. The essay focuses on the cultivation of Miami’s best-known plant product, the Haden mango, and the vital role in its propagation played by Black Bahamian gardener Nathan Sands, whose letters to his employer David Fairchild are preserved in the latter’s papers. Recovering the stories of people like Nathan Sands is vital to understanding the development of a global metropolis whose plant infrastructure erased the Black horticultural work on which it depended.

Globalization and the Miracle of Shenzhen: From Localizing the Global to Globalizing the Local

Abstract The phenomenal rise of Shenzhen, a newly emergent city where the number of non-registered residents far exceeds that of registered ones, has been closely associated with a complex and dynamic interplay between the process of globalization, which has enabled Shenzhen’s incredible transformation from an impoverished fishing village to a leading global metropolis, and the forces of localization, which have compelled Shenzhen to take its own distinct circumstances into consideration. The miracle of Shenzhen can be construed not only as an iconic embodiment of China’s process of modernization and globalization since reform and opening-up, but also as a local attempt to reconstruct an alternative modernity with Chinese characteristics in the homogenizing context of globalization. To elucidate how Shenzhen has played a leading role both in promoting China’s integration into the global system and in demonstrating the uniqueness of China’s development in the age of globalization, this article makes a careful exploration of Shenzhen’s process of modern centralization and postmodern decentralization over the past several decades. While modernizing and centralizing itself in the global context, Shenzhen also tries to reconstruct an alternative modernity with concrete Chinese practices, which has not only led to the emergence of multiple centers in China but also undermined the singular and fixed meaning of global modernity by deterritorializing its narrow domain and expanding its restricted reference with specific Chinese practices.

The Urban Tapestry: Unraveling Cultural Threads in Real Estate Choices in Gurgaon, Haryana, India - A Literature Review

In the intricate weave of urban development, the tapestry of culture plays an instrumental role in influencing real estate buying behaviors. This review paper delves into the complex relationship between cultural factors and real estate choices in the burgeoning city of Gurgaon, Haryana, India. Drawing upon an extensive examination of literature, surveys, and empirical studies, this paper seeks to shed light on how deep-seated cultural values, beliefs, and traditions influence the preferences and decisions of consumers in the Gurgaon real estate market. From the significance of Vastu Shastra in architectural designs to the socio-cultural implications of neighborhood choices, this study underscores the undeniable impact of cultural threads on the city's real estate tapestry. As Gurgaon emerges as a global metropolis, understanding these cultural nuances not only enhances our comprehension of its residents' preferences but also provides insights for developers, policymakers, and urban planners to weave a cityscape that resonates with its people's cultural fabric.

Modelling land use planning: Socioecological integrated analysis of metropolitan green infrastructures

Land use planning of global metropolis is essential to meet the socioecological challenges of the next decades. This paper aims to contribute to sustainable land use policies by proposing a socioecological integrated analysis of metropolitan green infrastructures, applying this landscape-metabolism model to the Urban Master Plan of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. The paper assesses the multiple functions and services of the green infrastructure in four land use scenarios and two types of agricultural management. The results show that the trending scenario of applying the current land use planning would have a negative impact in the ecological functioning of the landscape, affecting biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services to society. The results also show that certified organic farming is not enough to overcome some trends of industrial agriculture as low energy efficiency or greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, the results show different interactions between social metabolism and landscape ecology, as changes in the form of metabolism affect the functioning of the landscape, while changes in land cover specially affect resource use. Therefore, deeper changes are needed in land use policies that consider not only land covers, as has traditionally been done, but also metabolic flows to promote agroecological transitions towards more sustainable metropolitan green infrastructures under climate change scenarios.

Crystals in the Colony

This article examines the Crystal Arcade, the project of a little-known architect, Andrés Luna, read through the lens of Walter Benjamin’s contemporaneous Passagenwerk, at the same time as it is described within the complex context of Luna’s own family history—one entangled with the tragic history of the First Philippine Republic. It uses Benjamin’s “literary montage” to conjure the spectral presence of the colonial-cosmopolitan subject within his manuscript. I contend that the Crystal Arcade cannot be properly understood outside of a transnational framework and network, or without considering the conditions under which a colonial-cosmopolitan consciousness formed. Situating the Crystal Arcade and the Passagenwerk within this transnational milieu is intended to allow the reader to locate an often too marginalized history within the heart of the nineteenth-century global metropolis while at the same time allowing us to place that history at the forefront of the theorization of the global city.

Factors Influencing Mobile Payment Adoption in Hong Kong: A Quantitative Study

Mobile payment system is gaining increasing acceptance as a mode of payment in the current economic environment. With the growing popularity of mobile payments, it is important to identify the key factors that motivate people use mobile payment. Pinpointing such factors would allow businesses to build the right mobile payment for customer’s needs. This article relies on a novel integrated model and a qualitative method to answer the question "what are the key factors influencing Mobile Payment Adoption in Hong Kong, a global metropolis where mobile payment is making steady inroads”. This study use a quantitative approach with a sample size of 203 to investigate the Influence of eight factors on Behavioural Intention to use mobile payment. The results show that factors relating to “Hedonic Motivation”, “Habit”, “Perceived Usefulness”, “Perceived Ease of Use”, “Social Influence” and “Government Support” significantly affect the Behavioural Intention to use mobile payments to conduct online transactions, while “Perceived Risk” and “Perceived Cost” shows no significant effect. Although the TAM/UTAUT model has been extensively studied in the previous research on mobile payment services, little effort has been done to combine and investigate other influencing factors in order to test their effects on the intention to adopt mobile payment. As a result of this, this study contributed by developing and testing a novel integrated model providing a valuable guideline to help researchers looking into issues related to mobile payment services in Hong Kong.

Finding a New Illinois History: Connecting with the Revival of Midwestern Regional History

Finding a New Illinois History: Connecting with the Revival of Midwestern Regional History

Can Hong Kong exceptionalism last? Dilemmas of governance and public administration over five decades 1970s-2020

PurposeThe purpose of this book launch speech is to introduce the book I author, Can Hong Kong exceptionalism last? Dilemmas of governance and public administration over five decades 1970s-2020 (2021). The book critically reviews the governance and public administration from 1970s to 2020, identifying strengths and capabilities as well as constraints and dilemmas.Design/methodology/approachThe book is based on my decades of academic observations and personal political experience by interpreting and re-interpreting the Hong Kong journey, with reflections on past assumptions and raising new questions.FindingsThis book identifies five exceptional aspects: (a) Under British rule Hong Kong was governed as an atypical colony; (b) It was one of the Four Little Dragons as part of the East Asian Miracle; (c) In the 1990s, it was one of the regional pioneers in public sector reform; (d) The unique constitutional status of post-1997 Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China; (e) After reunification, the SAR government, though only semi-democratic, is checked by balancing and monitoring mechanisms no less vigorous than some developed democracies. It also examines various governance problems faced in the post-1997 period.Originality/valueHong Kong is again in times of uncertainty and volatility. The city has entered a ‘second transition’ after 2020, and it is undergoing a bigger test than in 1997. After reviewing the past, I opine in the book that Hong Kong has to identify its niche areas, not only in economics. It needs a paradigm shift in how it relates to the Mainland within ‘One Country’ and how it relates to the world as a global metropolis.

More mobile, less common? The transit sociality of Rabat’s Central train station

ABSTRACT Over the past few years, Rabat has been undergoing a double-process of modernisation and transformation into a heritage site. Its central railway station, which is currently being transformed into a large interchange hub, reflects the city’s aspiration to become a global metropolis. Previously, this place functioned as an urban magnet where people also came to stroll and socialise. The article explores how the refurbishment is affecting its functional and symbolic uses. Official sources promise that the renewed infrastructure will be a great new ‘milieu de vie’, a notion that summons up a vision of togetherness and an aspiration to metropolitan high life. But will the future project still welcome everyone and every type of sociality? Structured as a before-and-after comparison, the article describes ethnographic observations conducted at the station’s successive entrances. It shows that the new entrance layout may make the infrastructure more functional, but that it offers less opportunity for social activities. Causal interpretations concerning the role of design in facilitating or preventing social practices are proposed. The article concludes that the capacity of transit infrastructures to become a ‘common’ place depends on the connection between physical features and cultural skills. Since Rabat Central Station has become an arena of conflict between tradition and modernity, the paper’s contribution aims to reposition the controversy within a broader perspective, which connects the architectural and social dimensions of a local culture of transit (im)mobility.

Socio-Ecological Conflicts in a Global South Metropolis: Opportunities and Threats of a Potential Greenway in the São Paulo Metropolitan Region

Greenways are a measure of environmental remediation within a broad framework aimed at promoting urban greening and adaptation to climate change. The typical characteristics of large urban agglomerations, including land use (such as commercial, industrial, and residential areas) with few public spaces and fragmented landscapes, make it difficult to apply these solutions to the urban fabric, forcing decision-makers and planners to act in informal settlements, highways, and industrial parks. One proposed area is an enclave with unused or underutilized lots, where fragments of the Atlantic Forest, parks, landfills, and rapidly expanding informal settlements can be found. This manuscript examines the socioeconomic and environmental processes that shaped this potential urban greenway between Santo André, Mauá, and Ribeirão Pires, which are part of the São Paulo Metropolitan Region (SPRM), the largest in South America. A survey was conducted based on municipal and regional plans, the environmental and urban laws of Brazil, and the socioeconomic history of this part of the SPRM. In addition, satellite images were used to analyze land use evolution through geotechnologies. Finally, we prepared land use recommendations, considering opportunities and threats, highlighting the possibilities of protection and expansion of the Atlantic Forest. To this end, we examined the literature on environmental urban planning and design, green infrastructure, and other concepts. This study intends to stimulate researchers, planners, and decision-makers regarding the urban greening process in the Global South. According to the recommendations, this stimulus would develop these concepts according to the real situation of the region, which would combine the protection of wild habitats and urban environmental amenities. However, this effort makes no sense if one of the defining Global South characteristics not addressed is social inequality. Therefore, we recommend that an effort be made to develop and incorporate processes from urban greening in slum upgrading.

Research on the Coordinated Development of Global Urban Economic Competitiveness: Based on a Sample of 1007 Cities

Based on the global urban economic competitiveness data in 2017, this study conducts coupling analyses of the competitiveness indicator system. The comprehensive study on the coupling coordination degree among explanatory indexes of urban economic competitiveness concludes that the city with higher economic competitiveness rankings has a higher degree of coupling coordination (DCC); the city ranked lower in the economic competitiveness has a lower DCC. The cities with higher DCC are mainly those global cities or metropolis known for financial and technological innovations, while cities with bare coupling coordination are mainly in underdeveloped countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Based on the findings, the paper employs a model that combines linear regression and quantile regression to identify the specific driving factors that affect the cities’ competitiveness around the world. Therefore, every city should act according to local conditions, focus on the key drivers of urban development, and address the inadequacies to balance the economic development so as to enhance its competitiveness.

The building blocks of walkability: Pedestrian activity in Abu Dhabi city center

This study develops an empirical approach that underlines the effect of land use mix and development grain on pedestrian movement in the streets and public spaces of urban neighborhoods. The study begins with the end in mind; it compares two urban sectors in Abu Dhabi city with broadly recognized contrasting levels of pedestrian movement. The research works backward to identify the combination of built environment attributes that result in differing levels of pedestrian activity between the eastern and western sectors of Abu Dhabi city center. Using Geographic Information Systems maps/data files, direct observations, and field metrics, the study computes various indices related to land use mix, density, and street connectivity for Abu Dhabi central business district. The findings of this study highlight the land use, spatial and street network configurations that enhance pedestrian activity in urban centers. From a local perspective, the research outcome would inform future visions aimed at transforming the city of Abu Dhabi into a global metropolis that provides its citizens and visitors with unique and vibrant urban settings conducive to intra- and inter-neighborhood walkability.

Behavioural Aspects of Office Space Structures in the City: The Case of Warsaw’s Business Districts

Agglomeration and urbanisation externalities accelerate the concentration of commercial activities in the urban space and the creation of business districts. As a result, besides the usual central business district (CBD), large cities also have more recent, peripheral, and specialised secondary business districts (SBDs). There is little substantial research on the formation of SBDs in rapidly globalising, semi-peripheral locations, especially in post-socialist metropolises of Central and Eastern Europe. This includes Warsaw, Poland, which is being transformed into an emerging global metropolis. The article aims to determine the differences between the CBD and the SBD in Warsaw in terms of their attractiveness to companies and employees and the spatial behaviours of employees, especially in terms of transport and shopping. The research hypotheses indicate the differences between the two districts in terms of the type of agglomeration economies, transport accessibility, and components of the competitive advantage, as well as the characteristics of companies in those districts. The data are from a survey conducted in 2017–2018 among companies and their employees in both business districts, and they are analysed using basic statistical techniques and discriminatory analysis. The results confirmed there are significant differences between the two Warsaw business areas, mainly in terms of their transport accessibility and urbanisation externalities. In terms of transport, there is a greater role for public transport and rail in the CBD and for motorway and airport proximity in the SBD. Urbanisation externalities are significantly diminished by the traffic congestion in the SBD. The study also revealed that the development of commercial areas in Warsaw—a post-socialist city with a neoliberal model of spatial planning—follows only in some aspects the spatial patterns of business areas in other Western European metropolises.

Dispatches From New York: The Travels of a Moroccan diplomat at the end of the age of empire

ABSTRACT The Moroccan nationalist Mehdi Bennouna traveled to New York in 1947 to advocate for his country's independence before the United Nations. Throughout his six-month stay, he wrote daily reports to inform his colleagues back home about his activities, focusing not only on politics but also detailing the rhythm of daily life in the global metropolis. He thereby reasserted Morocco's rightful place on the global stage and portrayed the kingdom's urban bourgeoisie as the social force most capable of leading the nation into the future. In many ways, his diary contained resonances of the rihla account penned by the Moroccan diplomat Mohammad al-Saffar, who had provided a detailed report about life under industrial modernity upon his return from France in 1845. Contrasting the two travelogues offers unique a window onto the transformation Moroccan society during a century of European colonial expansion and contraction. The same international system, which had once posed an eminent threat to the kingdom's sovereignty, now seemed to invite Morocco's return on the basis of true equality.

Review: Dreamers and Schemers: How an Improbable Bid for the 1932 Olympics Transformed Los Angeles from Dusty Outpost to Global Metropolis, by Barry Siegel

Book Review| August 01 2021 Review: Dreamers and Schemers: How an Improbable Bid for the 1932 Olympics Transformed Los Angeles from Dusty Outpost to Global Metropolis, by Barry Siegel Barry Siegel. Dreamers and Schemers: How an Improbable Bid for the 1932 Olympics Transformed Los Angeles from Dusty Outpost to Global Metropolis. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019. 272 pp. Illustrations. Hardcover $29.95. Shaun S. Nichols Shaun S. Nichols Shaun S. Nichols is an assistant professor of history at Boise State University. His in-progress book manuscript is titled “Crisis Capital: Industrial Massachusetts and the Making of Global Capitalism, 1813–Present.” Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar California History (2021) 98 (3): 134–136. https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2021.98.3.134 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Shaun S. Nichols; Review: Dreamers and Schemers: How an Improbable Bid for the 1932 Olympics Transformed Los Angeles from Dusty Outpost to Global Metropolis, by Barry Siegel. California History 1 August 2021; 98 (3): 134–136. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2021.98.3.134 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCalifornia History Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California2021 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.