Big New York, Little Syria
“It is to stand before the towers of New York and Washington, Chicago and San Francisco saying in your heart, “I am the descendant of a people that builded Damascus and Byblos, and Tyre...
“It is to stand before the towers of New York and Washington, Chicago and San Francisco saying in your heart, “I am the descendant of a people that builded Damascus and Byblos, and Tyre...
Pre-war Beirut used to be the apparent centre of the Middle East: highly specialised economy, advanced tourist services, great cultural manifestations, and a beautiful strategic geographical situation. Unfortunately this is no more the case: Beirut, in spite of the reconstruction plan, has not been able to reclaim its lost supposed-to-be-centrality. One can go far and argue that Beirut was never a “real” centre, that is, where decision is made and where real power abides.
Dubai has become the global city of the Middle East. This centrality is manifest in many aspects: very important transport hubbing, highly-specialised financial and banking services, great cultural manifestations, cosmopolitan population, and a growing...
Centrality is best manifest in the city: most of central functions in our world operate from cities. And, in our imagination, “centre” is something we find in a city or around a city: city...
In the heart of centrality, this is, indeed, the subject of the book of Saskia Sassen. New York, London and Tokyo command the global-city network in the world, that is, the cities in which the biggest number of financial and economic transactions, cultural manifestations, and “pivotal” decisions are made (hence “central functions”). Los Angeles, Toronto, Sao Paolo, Paris, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, Dubai, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore belong to this network of global cities.