Selling art to the world in Chelsea

This paper explores the dynamic interaction that occurs between large-scale social processes, urban development and the production of artistic expression and meaning through an analysis of art and urban change in the West Chelsea district of New York City. I begin my analysis with a discussion of specific works of art and expand to the local and global context to which these works respond and help to construct. Both urban space and artistic production, consumption and the social meaning attached to art by artists, critics, audiences and other art world actors have felt the impact of the turn to free market policies and ideology that have attended global economic restructuring and the rapid pace of globalisation. At the same time, art's new role as an engine of urban commerce and the accompanying expansion of the art market have helped to shape city districts like West Chelsea and have left their mark on the work that is exhibited and sold there. My analysis integrates a close study of two works of art exhibited in West Chelsea, interviews and other ethnographic data and recent literature on the arts and urban restructuring and the perspective of critical theory. I also provide photographic documentation of social interaction and the built environment of West Chelsea as it evolved in response to the expansion of the art worlds there. A secondary aim of this research is to contribute to a larger discussion about the social role and critical capacities of art in today's social, economic and political climate.     

1964 Tokyo Olympics as Post‐War

This is an analysis of the historical continuity of the military‐cultural spatial formation of the Tokyo Olympic Games throughout the prewar and postwar era. The sites that eventually became the basis for hosting the 1964 and 2020 Olympics had already materialized in the plan for the 1940 Olympics. Tokyo's modernization process entailed a shift of the city's core from the rich cultural heritage accumulated since the Edo in the city's northeast towards an area extending from the southwest of the city center into the suburbs. The northeast area of central Tokyo had been home to commoner districts since the Edo period, and with land that was highly subdivided, did not lend itself to large‐scale development. But the southwest of the city center was originally the site of feudal estates, and these large sites were generally amenable to large‐scale development. These areas were home to numerous Imperial Japanese Army bases before the surrender, which after seizure during the US occupation eventually became the footprint for large parks and urban developments. The 1964 Olympics played a determinative role in the developments of the southwest of the city center. This continuity from prewar to postwar planning is reflected in the similar placement of venues, and the their conversion from former military uses. So the Olympics came to postwar Japan as a postwar event, in the strict sense of the word. The term postwar here refers foremost to the strategy of converting the social consciousness from war that accompanied reconstruction and economic growth.     

How manufacturing industries connect cities across the world: extending research on ‘multiple globalizations’

In this article, I concentrate on a macro‐level analysis of inter‐urban linkages in a ‘world city network’. Empirical research on the formation of a world city network has mostly concentrated on global service providers. Yet, globally operating manufacturing firms also choose distinct urban regions throughout the world as locational anchoring points. In this article, using social network analysis, I present the first global‐scale analysis of how manufacturing firms connected cities across the world (in 2010). To detect the differing ‘sectoral profiles’ and nodal centralities of cities functioning as geographical hubs of transnational production networks, it is necessary to analyse the network structure of distinct industrial subsectors within the global urban system. The data collected for analysis cover 120 top global firms from three manufacturing subsectors, of which two are analysed in more detail than the third. I then compare the nodal centralities of cities included in these subsectors' global networks with the GaWC research on the producer services sector that has been at the centre of previous analyses of the world city network. The comparison reveals the cities' differing positioning within ‘multiple globalizations’. The aim of the article is to extend research on world city networks.     

The duality of world cities and firms: comparing networks,hierarchies, and inequalities in the global economy

Much of the research on globalization conceives of the global economy as structured by networks among places, while separately organizational research has examined the role of networks among firms in structuring competition, collaboration, and cooperation. In both cases, position and centrality within the network confers certain advantages and disadvantages, the distribution of which defines a hierarchy. In this article, I explore the idea of dual networks of world cities and firms, then use Breiger's approach to define two such networks: one among 313 world cities, another among 100 advanced producer service firms. Comparison of the degree of inequality in the hierarchies implied by these networks suggest that world city hierarchies are steeper than firm hierarchies (that is there is greater inequality among cities). Thus, even under conditions of footloose global capitalism, place still matters: where a producer is located has more impact than who provides support services.     

Integrating world cities into production networks: the case of port cities

In this article we analyse the location patterns of firms that provide specialized advanced producer services (APS) to international commodity chains that move through seaports. Such activities can take place in world cities or in port cities. The analysis of APS location patterns in port cities provides a good opportunity to integrate the study of world cities into the framework of Global Production Networks. Based upon our empirical findings, we conclude that while port-related APS activities predominantly follow the world city hierarchy, a number of port cities stand out because they act as nodes in global commodity flows and as centres of advanced services related to shipping and port activities. Based on these empirical findings we address future avenues of research.     

Recentralization of Tokyo: Contradiction and Political Struggle for Regional Policy in Japan

Tokyo, the capital city of Japan, has always been a center of national economic growth, and hence a focal point of political struggle between local and national government. There exist two kinds of political forces; the former desires strong concentration of economic activities in Tokyo based on market rationality and economic efficiency, and the latter counters the former claiming more decentralization based on the balanced national economic structure. This paper reviews the development of urban and regional policy in Japan over the last 20 years and examines how such political forces have played out. After the decade‐long sluggish economic performance and the challenge of inter‐urban competition by Asian mega‐cities, Tokyo Metropolitan Government formulated an aggressive promotional policy under the leadership of the then Governor Ishihara. He tactically created a political consensus to give locational favor to the central part of Tokyo at the expense of other regions. It was partially challenged by the election of the then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who insisted the need to revitalize the regions that were economically lagging. Despite his words, however, the centralization of Tokyo continued. This paper argues that the regional revitalization policy under the Abe administration was political rhetoric rather than reality, and Japan's economic fortune may still depend on the performance of Tokyo in the global economy under the neoliberal policy orientation.     

Understanding the position of end nodes in the world city network: using peer city analysis to differentiate between non‐hub cities

In the current debate on the world city network and inter‐city connectivity, a large number of cities, particularly in developing countries, have received limited attention. Despite a growing interest in emerging market cities, many scholars still focus on the more affluent parts of the global economy. In an attempt to redress this imbalance, I present an assessment for use on cities that are not at the centre of the network; but what we consider ‘end nodes’. I build my argument on Taylor's interlocking model for assessing city connectivity and zoom in on the types of networks that non‐hub cities create through their inter‐linkages with so‐called peer cities in the same economic sector. I take these ego networks as a starting point and then lead the argument on to view city networks from a non‐hub perspective. This allows me to identify the existing linkages between different peer cities within as well as between selected city networks. The renewable energy business in India puts this argument to an empirical test. My findings confirm that this way of looking at city connectivity allows one to assess specifically for city end nodes and thereby contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the world city network.     

City diplomacy and “glocal” governance: revitalizing cosmopolitan democracy

Diplomacy is in trouble. With globalization come global problems. While we live in a twenty-first-century world of interdependence, we face seventeenth-century Westphalian political institutions with defined boundaries and separated responsibilities of nation-states. When we think of diplomacy, we are thinking of state-to-state relations; however, with sovereign obligation and national interest obsession, state-to-state negotiations often fall into “gridlocks”; international policy-making also suffers from “democratic deficits”. David Held offered cosmopolitan democracy as the answer, but his “world government” thesis provides no realistic policy implications.

In very recent years, city-to-city (“trans-municipal”) networks have received significant international recognition as cities are able to cooperate, with concrete actions, on a range of global issues. Surprisingly, scholars of international relations have largely neglected the role of cities in global governance. This paper argues for city diplomacy and “glocal” governance to fill the theoretical gap. It has two purposes: (1) to break the “conceptual jail” of regarding nation-states as the legitimate subject to manage world affairs, and open the door for cities and (2) to revisit the condition of cosmopolitan democracy, and offer a realistic model to revitalize the concept while bypassing the infeasibility of world government. In Part I, as I revisit Confucian philosophy da-tong (great unity), Rosenau's “sovereignty-free” actors and Athenian democracy, I argue that cities are our best hope to transcend nationality for the common well-being of humanity, connect local citizens to global public policy, and move towards cosmopolitan democracy. In Part II, drawing on Dahl's democratic criteria and DeBúrca's “democratic-striving approach”, I will develop two “building blocks” of democracy at the global level – —equal participation and popular control. In Part III, with reference to the “building blocks”, I will conduct a qualitative analysis to evaluate the cosmopolitan characteristics of C40 and develop political justifications for “trans-municipal networks”.     

Time Difference Gentrification as a Bloodless Revolution: Class Structure and Spatial Polarization in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area after the 1980s

Economic disparity in Japan has been increasing since approximately 1980. This change has been particularly significant in one of its global cities, the Tokyo metropolitan area, resulting in a dramatic transformation of its socio‐spatial structure. Until the 1980s, economic disparity in Tokyo was not as large as that in the whole of Japan. Moreover, the concentration of high‐income households in the center of Tokyo was not significant. However, the old middle class, which consist of self‐employed individuals, and small capitalist class began to dissolve in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively, resulting in a decline in the population in the center of the city and its surrounding areas. In the 2000s the new middle class began to move into these areas. This was gentrification; however, because of the time difference between the dissolution of the old middle class and small capitalists and the influx of the new middle class, it was not violent but proceeded in a relatively peaceful manner. Until 1990, in areas 20‐40 km from the center of Tokyo, income levels and the proportion of the new middle class were high, however by 2010 the proportion of the working class had increased, and income levels had fallen significantly. Thus, in the Tokyo metropolitan area, the old middle class and the small capitalists in and around the center of Tokyo were replaced by the new middle class, and a hierarchical socio‐spatial structure culminationg in the center of Tokyo developed.     

从世界城市、全球城市到世界名城——一种理论的视角

从某种意义上说,世界城市和全球城市是一对既相关联又略有差别的概念。世界城市研究的是20世纪上半叶以来的世界顶尖城市,而全球城市主要研究20世纪下半叶以来的世界顶尖城市,特别看重的是全球化进程中的城市功能与地位。当代中国提出的中国名城和世界名城之说则强调城市的气质和特性,研究世界城市之林中具有品牌特色和地位的城市。我们需要利用名城思维来整合各种资源,找准城市的主题,需要站在全球的视野看名城品牌,从而打造全新的世界名城。     

The new geography of global civil society: NGOs in the world city network

Recent research on the geography of NGOs in Global Civil Society yearbooks has emphasized a north-west European bias. This has been taken to imply that global civil society is but a pale geographical shadow of the power concentrations in global economy and governance. Using an interlocking network model and data on 74 global NGOs with offices across 178 cities, NGO connectivity values for cities show that there is a ‘global South’, especially sub-Saharan African, geographical bias. Nairobi is the most connected world city with respect to NGO activities. This marked contrast to recent received wisdom implies a diffuse network power relationship. To the extent that global NGOs reveal the new geography of global civil society in a space of flows, these results support a positive interpretation for NGOs contributing to an emancipatory global agenda.     

奥克兰是创业型全球城市吗?

学术领域围绕竞争力和创业型全球城市的研究文献相当丰富。在全球化的影响下,城市和地区早已成为提升经济发展的政策重点。全球范围内能被称为世界城市的屈指可数,而被视为创业型城市的更是少之又少。奥克兰是新西兰最大的城市,其区域经济发展战略(AREDS)旨在推动大奥克兰地区成为具有竞争力的创业型全球城市。本文回顾了相关文献,勾勒出这样的概念和要求:城市应该如何保持竞争力。初步研究表明,这项工作才刚刚起步。     

Gentrification without Gentry in a Declining Global City?: Vertical Expansion of Tokyo and Its Urban Meaning1

This article explores the reasons for the vertical expansion of cities till the 2020s by analyzing the history of urban space production for about half a century, using Tokyo as an example. As a concept, gentrification partially explains the changes in Tokyo. However, summarizing the entire urban transformation as a gentrification trend can lead to some misunderstandings. Most of the development took the form of simply rebuilding skyscrapers in limited areas, rather than the displacement of an entire class in the whole district. Consequently, the sharp contrast between island‐like skyscrapers and the densely populated small houses surrounding them became the typical landscape of current semi‐gentrified Tokyo. Instead of gentrification, “gentrification without gentry” would be a better expression for describing most cases in Tokyo. Alliances for urban speculation are always embedded in multi‐scale conditions in a globalizing world along with the inherent historical and structural constitution of the city. Through dynamic but contingent processes, a structure was constructed to promote urban development in a way that might exceed the actual demands. In the case of Tokyo, the bubble economy era and its effects, a would‐be global city ideology, mega‐events such as the Olympic Games, and expected earthquakes had a distinct influence on other common factors.     

Climate riskscapes in world port cities: situating urban‐cosmopolitan risk communities via Ulrich Beck's comparative tactics

Building on empirical research into translocal connections among world port cities in addressing shared challenges of climate risk mitigation and adaptation, in this article I review two widespread tendencies in urban studies – methodological city‐ism and methodological globalism respectively – as a springboard for articulating a methodologically cosmopolitan alternative. This alternative, I argue, involves epistemological issues of how to interrogate ‘the urban’ as assemblages that constitutively draw together the near and the faraway, as well as more practical issues of mobile, multisited, and comparative urban research methods. Empirically, I compare the ways in which urban actors stage global climate risks on the waterfronts of four world cities – Hong Kong, Rotterdam, Yokohama and Copenhagen – to argue that such a comparative tactic of variable ‘riskscapes’ helps situate Ulrich Beck's notion of urban cosmopolitan risk communities more thoroughly into urban studies. In such ways, I suggest, Beck's methodological cosmopolitanism is germane to studying ongoing and far ranging transformation in world political geography, in which transurban networks, communities, and governance arrangements come to complement nation‐state centred institutions. Such conclusions must be tempered, however, by the deployment of Beck's equally strong impetus towards comparative attention to the varieties of second modernity; and doing so, I conclude, aligns well with ongoing transformations in urban studies itself.     

东京一极集中及其城市辐射研究

东京作为日本的首都,既是日本政治、经济、文化与交流的中心,也是与纽约、伦敦、巴黎等齐名的世界城市,其辐射早已跨越本土波及全球。本文首先从宏观上考察了东京在世界城市体系中的地位,并从时空上明确了日本国土结构演变过程中东京一极集中与金字塔型城市体系;为了弄清辐射源的特质,聚焦东京都市圈核心——东京都剖析了其产业结构及主导产业的特质,接着侧重辐射角度分析了东京对东京圈、首都圈产业发展、产业结构升级的带动作用,以及东京特大都市圈城市网络空间的特色、活力及魅力。     

The multipolar regionalization of cities in multinational firms' networks

This article identifies the most cohesive multi‐polar regions of the network of world cities, which differ from the unipolar centre–periphery model largely created by the high weight of central city connections. We use a community detection algorithm that outlines the high densities of city networks (in relative weights). Various patterns of industries and services, which are divided into two skill levels, are identified. We use a global database of the network of 1.2 million direct and indirect ownership links between the 800,000 subsidiaries of the top 3000 multinational groups in 2013, allowing us to build four comparable networks of 503 metropolitan areas. Comparing the obtained partitions with continental, regional and economic benchmarks, classes of cities partially correspond to free trade zones (FTZs) but exhibit interesting cross‐continental patterns. A few cities, changing their classes according to the activities, are discussed in the light of the multinational firms' strategies.     

The Image of the City in Modern Arab Painting: Artists Recreate Their Own Cities

The subject of the city in Arab art, as far as I know, has never been studied by art critics and historians. This has apparently not happened because of the strong influence of western modernism and its theories. This article uncovers the importance of the city in early and later modern Arab painting. Examples from the late 1930s and 1940s reflect the less developed cities in terms of their social and structural aspects. This is very obvious in the two paintings by Said (Alexandria, Egyptian) and Nazar (Baghdad, Iraqi). The Arab paintings from the second half of the twentieth century present a different mode of expression as the political and social circumstances of Arab countries are reflected in them. Paintings from this period by Arab artists presenting images of their cities such as those of Haddad and Jabbour (Beirut, Lebanese), Idrees (Jeddah, Saudi), Shammout (Alled, Palestinian), Talib and Al‐Attar (Baghdad, Iraqis), and Alhamzah (Utopia, Jordanian), are very expressive and loaded with meaning. It appears that the relationship between the artist and the city is so intimate, that the artist’s life intersects with the city’s life. The paintings discussed show that the Arab artists’ cities in most cases are not realized as hoped so they tried alternative ones. The artist sees her/himself as a savior by criticizing the state of the beloved city calling for a better one. In this sense the image of the city becomes a representation of the painter’s own artistic reservoir as a form of offerings.     

Mediating claims to artistry: Social stratification in a local visual arts community

Participant observation was employed to analyze the stratification of artists in the visual art world around a small northeastern American city. Reflecting their art world reputation, artists' strata included naifs, hobbyists, serious amateurs, aspiring preprofessionals, and professionals. The local careers of some artists moved progressively from lower to higher reaches of the system; as they moved upward, their level of professional commitment, art world involvement, knowledge of art, skill, and artistic style tended to change also. Except among professionals, the great majority were women. Overall, certain art styles were selectively favored. The most important selective mechanisms were formal art education, professionalization, artistic style, network centrality, jurying, and sales. With a few recent exceptions, truly naive and imitative traditional styles were excluded from the upper levels in favor of modernist abstraction, innovative figuration, or sophisticated forms ofart brut.An earlier version of this paper was presented to the 12th World Congress of Sociology, International Sociological Association, Madrid, July 1990.     

从伦敦、纽约和东京看世界城市形成的阶段、特征与规律

以科技进步推动产业发展和工业化进程为主线,选取伦敦、纽约和东京三个典型世界城市为研究对象,从这三个城市的发展历程出发,试图通过从科技进步、工业化进程、经济发展到世界城市这一链条研究世界城市形成和发展的阶段、特征与规律。     

Power,capital, and artistic freedom: contemporary Chinese art communities and the city

This paper offers a critical review of the proliferation of the contemporary art colony in China since the beginning of the twenty-first century in the context of China's promotion of cultural creative industries as one of the strategies for urban development and economic growth. Through analyzing cases in Beijing, Xi’an, and Sanya, cities ranging from ‘first-tier’ to ‘third-tier’ in their size and status, the paper explores the challenges and opportunities many contemporary Chinese art professionals find themselves face amid the competitive city image building campaign, a top-down movement led by local state and private investors in cities across China. It is evident that contemporary art and alternative art spaces associated with it have been drawn into the process of commodification, inadvertently recruited to play an ancillary role in the reproduction of the hegemonic collusion between political power and capitalism in a rapidly urbanizing China. Nonetheless, I argue that the inclusion of contemporary art communities as a player in the production and reproduction of the urban space has provided critical-minded artists, critics, and curators opportunities to participate in the reconfiguration of the physical and cultural landscape of Chinese cities, albeit not always with positive outcomes. As such, some art professionals are able to appropriate the process of capitalist urbanization to create their own ‘infrastructures of resonance’ [Thompson 2015. Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the Twenty-first Century. Brooklyn: Melville House], which support artistic freedom and facilitate the growth of diverse forms of cultural creation and exchange despite the coming dominance of ‘power plus capital’ [X. Wang 2003. A Manifesto for Cultural Studies. In: C. Wang, ed. One China, many paths. London: Verso, 274–291].