Cities are shaping the future of global affairs.
Over the next seven days, tens of thousands of people from around the world will convene in Quito for Habitat III. Heads of state, mayors, corporate leaders, and civil society representatives will join this United Nations conference to explore ways in which cities shape the planet. Through mass urbanization and growing economic power, cities are poised to shake up the future world order.
In terms of sheer economic size, today’s top cities already belong to an elite class of global actors that includes large nation-states and leading multi-national corporations. My organization, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, has found that 42 of the largest 100 economic entities in the world are cities. This marks a significant increase over a 2010 study by the World Bank when cities accounted for 34 of the 100 largest economies. Cities—which have long been hubs of the global economy, facilitating both flows and concentrations of people, goods, resources, and wealth—are now amassing economic power at an accelerating pace.
But when Tokyo and New York City have GDPs that rival those of Canada, Spain, and Turkey, what does that really mean for their political influence?
Like countries, cities–and networks of cities–can use economic leverage to achieve global governance goals. The beginnings of the G7, as well as other politically influential emerging market groups like the Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan), BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), and MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey), have their origins in economic ascendancy. And if many cities now have economic footprints on par with influential nation-states, it stands to reason that they will have similar opportunities to band together to encourage, limit, and channel economic activity—not just within their bounds but across continents.
The rise of cities parallels the increasing impact of the multinational corporations (MNCs) featured on our top 100 economies list. MNCs have exercised extraordinary, if sometimes controversial, influence by using their economic might to shape business-friendly trade deals, tax structures, and environmental regulations. So when Mexico City and Guangzhou have economic outputs comparable to the world’s seven largest corporations—Wal-Mart, Royal Dutch Shell, China Petroleum & Chemical, Exxon Mobil, British Petroleum, PetroChina, and Volkswagen—it’s worth examining how they too might exercise similar influence. Though cities lack the leverage provided by corporate mobility, they possess even greater credibility as politically legitimate actors representing the interests of their local populations.
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