The analog age of cities is over, giving way to a digitally linked network of cities that has been so thoroughly theorized by world cities scholars. This is one of the most politically precarious periods in history, as climate change washes away any sense of permanence in intercity relations. The archipelago of cities as we know it could be reconfigured beyond recognition during this century if current patterns of greenhouse gas emissions hold. In that case, alpha cities will do what they once did: Manage resource scarcity and consolidation rather than abundance. This chapter reiterates the importance of understanding intercity relations from the past in order to better understand the sweeping changes that may come – especially if the city returns to its original form as a key autonomous player in world politics, as world cities studies predict. It revisits the book’s cases, emphasizing the hopeful potential for cities in an urban age, and taking into account theoretical implications within world cities studies.

This chapter outlines attempts by global cities scholars to explain historic networks. Research in global cities studies shows that we are living in an urban age, a high period for intercity relations that promises a reconsideration of history. Today’s world city network emerged in tandem with major shifts in the global economy, along with the gradual erosion of national borders in many spheres of politics. Global cities studies pose two major questions for cities today: First, how are cities shaping globalization? Second, how is globalization shaping lived experiences in cities? Global cities studies, led by John Friedmann, Saskia Sassen, Manuel Castells, and Peter J. Taylor presciently posed these questions in the midst of drastic contemporary changes in the architecture of the world economic system. The emphasis on late capitalism in world cities studies creates problems in the literature in need of challenge. This chapter stresses the need for a political history of city networks, identifying the absence of history of the literature as a flaw in need of change. Today’s world city network is far from a steady state or “end of history.”

The introductory chapter explores the way attention to cities and urban literatures expands the typical nodes of World Literary production. It does so, we argue, by activating not just a broader spatial imaginary or geographical reach for the field, but multiplies the historical and linguistic formations of potential literary world systems. The chapter offers three starting propositions about World Literature: that it seeks literary frameworks beyond the nation; it tends toward systematicity and totality; and it activates an interest in decolonizing literary systems. Given that urban centers are typically highly networked at regional, national and global scales, we then consider the way cities have typically functioned as cultural “switchboards” regarding the commingling of peoples, cultures, goods and ideas. Instead of offering a singular new theory of World Literature to supersede previous ones, our volume proffers accounts of world-connecting circuitry that depends upon the complex dialectics of urban materialities and worldly imaginations.

The unrest in 2019 surprised many in the protesters’ militancy and their radical political consciouness. Previous literature on Hong Kong politics, society, and culture is not adequate in explaining this sudden and broad-based outburst of resistance. Hong Kong’s struggle for autonomy is an example of city’s struggle for freedom against centralizing nation states throughout the history of global capitalism. This book shows how the larger global political economic forces shape the political terrain of Hong Kong, as China’s offshore financial center at the edges of great powers. The analysis in the book will combine careful examination of large structural trends and recognition of the agency of different groups of Hong Kongers.

The C40 has made assertive claims with respect to its ability to engender increased engagement, ambition, and scope of climate governance over both time and space. This chapter provides an independent corroboration of these claims, which have to-date been based on internal network data and analysis, by drawing on a novel dataset of over 10,000 climate governance actions adopted by C40 cities between 2001 and 2018. The chapter confirms that the C40 has increased the level of member city engagement, action, and ambition across geographic and economic divides. This renders the C40 distinct from other voluntary city-networks such as ICLEI and is deeply puzzling given the inability of these networks to deploy coercion or hard compliance mechanisms to close the gap between nominal commitments and concrete actions. The chapter concludes by considering three alternative explanations: as a function of economic development; as a function of inter-city learning, and as a function of the efforts of the network bureaucracy. Each is shown to be incomplete, thus demonstrating the need for a novel means of theorizing coordination in city-networks like the C40.

Chapter 1 introduces the study with a vignette of a critical case from Yungay, Santiago. There, a group of residents with no prior background in activism, in a city with unsympathetic political institutions and leadership, organized and achieved remarkable and sustained policy impact and stopped planned redevelopment in their neighborhood. The chapter then presents the key questions: How have citizens adapted resistance against urban redevelopment to profound political, social, and technological changes? And under what conditions do they reach their goals? The chapter justifies the focus on struggles against urban redevelopment: Urban redevelopment plays a critical role in contemporary capitalism and has important social and political implications. Investigating the struggles against redevelopment, in turn, can lead to broader insights about contentious politics. Finally, the chapter presents an overview of argument and a plan for the rest of the book.

This chapter explains the research design and presents an overview of the results with discussion and flow charts. When are residents able to mobilize against displacement? And when is their mobilization able to affect policy? To answer these questions, the book explores protest in “aspiring global cities” – cities characterized by urban governments that make economic competitiveness their priority. Starting with an analysis of globalization indexes, and with a rigorous selection mechanism, the chapter presents twenty-nine protest campaigns between 2005 and 2015 in Buenos Aires, Hamburg, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Madrid, Melbourne, Santiago, Seoul, Tel Aviv, and Toronto. The main findings are that successful organizers rely on experiential tools – activities designed to attract participants by offering transformative experiences with the goal of making the protest site the place to be. And when these protesters have allies in city council and competition between local and higher level executives, mobilization has policy impact. The legal system and the variety of capitalism in each country influences the strategies of protest organizers, with important differences between liberal and coordinated market economies.

Chapter 4 provides background on the ten aspiring global cities and their theoretical and empirical comparability. Despite important variations, the cities examined share these core features: (1) They are key national and regional nodes of business and politics. (2) They experienced major and controversial redevelopment, which has caused different forms of displacement. (3) They have intensified the use of branding and cultural policies as engine of economic growth, often thereby promoting the “creative class.” The chapter presents data showing their shared prominence and discusses the high degree of institutional variation between the cities.There is significant variation in how markets and governments combine to pursue international competitiveness policies and the associated urban redevelopment. In developmental states, an essential feature is the elimination of informal settlements, with the consequent massive and brutal displacement of the poor, as examined in Seoul, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, and Santiago. In more advanced economies, a key dynamic is the erosion of public-sector housing, as illustrated for Hamburg. Redevelopment policies weresupported by city branding and legitimized by connections to cultural industries as new engines for economic growth, as examined in Tel Aviv, Seoul, Buenos Aires, and Los Angeles.