Agencies of Globalization and Third World Urban Form: A Review

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2003 18: 111Journal of Planning LiteratureRafael E. Pizarro, Liang Wei and Tridib Banerjee

Agencies of Globalization and Third World Urban Form: A Review

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10.1177/0885412203257693ARTICLEJournal of Planning LiteratureAgencies of Globalization

Agencies of Globalizationand Third World UrbanForm: A Review

Rafael E. PizarroLiang WeiTridib Banerjee

This article proposes a theoretical framework to examine theeffects of globalization on urban form and urbanism in thethird world. Toward developing such a framework, theauthors conceptualize globalization as the removal of politicaland physical barriers for the free movement of capital, people,information, and culture among nations and propose that theremoval of such barriers have consequences on the cities of thethird world. These consequences, the authors suggest, areexpressed in the configuration of urban space, urban form,and urbanism in the third world. The authors look at thosefour agencies of globalization (movement of capital, people,information, and culture) and their effects. The goal of thearticle is to offer a critical framework for reviewing contempo-rary literature on globalization and third world urban form.

Keywords: globalization; urban form; urbanism; Third Worldcities

When we began the background research for thisarticle, we had no idea, nor could anyone anticipate,that on September 11, 2001, violent reactionary forceswould make a devastating political statement about theunresolved conflicts and contradictions of the modernworld by reducing a significant component of the urbanform of lower Manhattan to mere rubbles. In some

ways, the attack on the World Trade Center was a tragicbut telling assertion of fundamental cultural conflictsand tensions that continue to fester as the globalizationjuggernaut rolls on. Indeed, there is much to be saidabout the bright side of globalization that is uplifting,liberating, modernizing, secularizing, and empower-ing. But there is also the dark side that manifests itself inexacerbating poverty, deprivation, inequality, politicaloppression, gender abuse, and cultural and religioustensions (see Mendieta 2001). Benjamin Barber’s bookJihad vs. McWorld (1995) has aptly captured some ofthese tensions. Much has been written in recent yearsthat takes a critical look at various effects of globaliza-tion and its discontents (see Barber 2000; Sassen 1998).In this article, we focus on a particular outcome of glob-

RAFAEL E. PIZARRO is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Policy,Planning, and Development at the University of Southern Califor-nia. He is currently a research fellow in the Observatorio del CaribeColombiano in Cartagena, Colombia, and adjunct faculty in theSchool of Architecture and Urbanism at the Universidad Jorge TadeoLozano in the same city. He is a coeditor of the book Southern Cali-fornia and the World (Greenwood, 2002).

LIANG WEI is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Policy, Plan-ning, and Development at the University of Southern California.Her current research focuses on immigration and urban housing.

TRIDIB BANERJEE is a professor in the School of Policy, Plan-ning, and Development at the University of Southern California,where he holds a James Irvine Chair of Urban and RegionalPlanning.

Journal of Planning Literature,Vol.18,No.2(November2003).DOI: 10.1177/0885412203257693Copyright © 2003 by Sage Publications

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alization in the developing world: its effects on thechanging urban form and landscape of cities. As plan-ners and urban designers, we have both a vested inter-est and an ethical responsibility to be aware of thisdynamic and to inform the future practice of urbandesign and planning.

The aim of this article is to begin a discourse on theeffects of globalization on urban form by offering a criti-cal framework for reviewing literature and catalogingrelevant concepts. To this end, we looked at what the lit-erature on postcolonial studies, political economy inthe third world, dependency theory, world systems the-ory, postmodernity, and planning in the third world hasto say about the effects of globalization in the urbanform of third world cities. As this review will suggest,although there is much that is written on the subject ofglobalization and its causes and consequences, thematerials on urban form and urbanism are still some-what limited, or speculative at best. We hope that thisreview will help identify areas for future studies,doctoral dissertations, and scholarly writings.

In framing this review, we construct a matrix consist-ing of various components of urban form and globaliza-tion. To a large extent, the dimensions of this matrix area function of the comprehensive scope of the literatureon globalization included in our review. Of necessity,we have used a more expansive notion of urban form,for example, than typically used in the fields of architec-ture, planning, and urban design. We submit that it isnecessary to consider the notion of urban form as morethan just the three-dimensional built form of a city or ametropolis. We must also consider the experiential,social, and political manifestations of urban form that,in fact, may elude the more palpable notions of urbanform as commonly defined (cf. Raban 1988; Banerjeeand Verma 2001). Unless we use such an inclusiveframework, we run the risk of excluding significant lit-erature sources that offer new insights about globaliza-tion, which is, by all reckoning, a multidimensionalphenomenon, leading to multi- and interdisciplinarywritings. Accordingly, we define the concept of urbanform in terms of seven components, which, in a roughhierarchy of general to specific, could be listed as fol-lows: (1) overall urbanism, (2) identity and image, (3)spatial configuration of cities, (4) social ecology, (5)dynamics of public realm, (6) scale and pace of develop-ment, and (7) architectural vernacular. When we dis-cuss urbanism of cities, we mean those nonphysicaldimensions of the city generally associated with thequality of urban life but also with the activities of think-ing about, and planning of, cities. The definition offeredin the American Heritage College Dictionary, third edition,(1993) comes close to the way we use the word: “Theculture or way of life of city dwellers.” We also propose

that the essence of globalization could be defined as theunrestricted movements of money, people, informa-tion, and culture—and their agency effects. Thus, thecombination of the four agencies of globalization andtheir effects on those seven components of urban formhelps develop an organizational matrix to map therelevant literature (see Table 1) on the consequences ofglobalization on urban form and urbanism of the thirdworld.

SEVEN DIMENSIONS OF URBAN FORM

We propose that the construct of urban form can beseen as having several operational dimensions. Thesecategories are derived from a rather extensive literatureon urban form, which, of course, remains beyond thescope of this review. We will only refer to a few perti-nent references relevant to various categories. The firstdimension we propose has to do with urbanism, that is,the human life experience, activity patterns, socialmilieu, and the pace of life of a city, or what Milgram(1970) has called the “atmosphere” of a city. In a way,this dimension may seem more elusive and “evanes-cent” (according to Milgram) than the previous onessince it concerns the “softer,” albeit no less real, sense ofurban form (see, e.g., Raban 1988). The second dimen-sion we propose has to do with the qualitative aspectsof urban form—images and identities—as discussed inthe earlier works of Lynch (1960) and Appleyard (1976),and more recently in the works of Sandercock (1998)and Tajbaksh (2001). The third dimension is that of thespatial organization (radial, grid, etc.), density gradi-ents, and patterns (monocentric, polycentric, sprawl,compact city, etc.) that are commonly used to describethe three-dimensional urban form (see, e.g., Lynch[1954] 1990). The fourth dimension concerns the distri-bution of different population groups in space and the

112 Journal of Planning Literature

TABLE 1. Globalization and Urban Form

Agencies of GlobalizationAspects of Discourseon Urban Form Capital People Information Culture

UrbanismImage and identitySpatial organization

and structureSocial ecologyPublic realmScale and pace of

developmentArchitectural

vernacular



attendant mix, separation, exclusion, and segregation(Sennett 1971). The fifth dimension of urban form com-prises public space and the public realm—the supply,distribution, configurations, and openness of publicspaces and how they might be changing (Banerjee2001). Another dimension of urban form has to do withthe grain, texture, and scale of new developments andadditions to the physical city (see Lynch and Rodwin[1958] 1990). Finally, vernacular architecture and con-temporary changes help define the visual form of thecityscape and can be seen as still another descriptor (seeKostof 1991). The second, third, and the last two dimen-sions of this schema implicitly include qualities ofurban form that might be derived from the historicallegacy of a city.

THE NATURE AND AGENCIES OF GLOBALIZATION

Globalization is a process. It is at once transitionaland transcendental. It is a condition of flux rather thanstasis. It replaces certainty, stability, order, and equilib-rium with uncertainty, instability, disorder, and dis-equilibrium. It is a process that can be described interms of flows, networks, capacities, distributions, dif-fusions, and movements. We can think of carriers, con-veyors, and conduits, to use mechanical metaphors, butalso, and probably more relevant to us, such systemicconcepts as media, matrix, vectors, and agencies.Although these movements are commonly defined inthe literature as “flows,” we have chosen to renamethem as “agencies” (as in “human agency”) because wefeel this term more fairly represents their true nature.That is, they are not a smooth stream of money, people,information, or culture circulating evenly with unbro-ken continuity back and forth between nations butrather the result of specific forces set in motion by iden-tifiable actors in specific geographic areas who usethose agents to obtain specific—although sometimesunintended—results in the receiving culture, society, orcity.

We realize, however, that framing “globalization”within a particular time bracket could be problematic.So we note at the outset that by “globalization,” we areprimarily, but not exclusively, focusing on the later partof the previous (the twentieth) century marked by theexpansion of a global economy, a concomitant revolu-tion of the information and communication technology,and exploding international immigration. Someobservers of globalization argue that the world wasactually more integrated (hence “globalized”) duringthe late colonial period than it is today. Held et al. (1999)refer to the proponents of this view as the “sceptics,”including such authors as Chase-Dunn (1989) andFrank and Gills (1993). We should note parenthetically

that recent subaltern deconstruction of the colonial his-toriography seems to contest the claim of suchintegration (see, e.g., Wright 1991; Yeoh 1996; Çelik1997; as well as Said 1979, 1993; Guha 1997; Guha andSpivack 1988). Furthermore, Held et al. (1999) also iden-tify a “transformationalist” view, according to which aradical break with a certain past took place in the 1970sand 1980s when there was a definitive shift from an“international” to a “global” economy (see also Barnetand Müller 1974). This group of authors, includingCastells (1996), Harvey (1989), Giddens (1990), andAmin and Thrift (1992), argue that true globalizationstarted in the 1980s with the “time-space compression”brought about by the fusion of telecommunications andinformation technologies (see also Hoogvelt [1978]2001). Nevertheless, some of the current effects of glob-alization on urban form have parallels in the colonialinfluences of an earlier era, and as we will discuss later,some of the studies focusing on that period might berelevant even today, subaltern views of “integration”notwithstanding.

We propose that urban form and urbanism outcomescan be best seen as resulting from four agencies of glob-alization: capital, population, information, and culture.We consider these agencies subsuming such otheraspects of globalization as politics, technology, andinstitutions, which are also the focus of inquiry in someof the writings on globalization. The preeminence of thetransnational corporations, restructuring of the inter-national financial system, and the globalization ofproperty markets are some examples of agencies of cap-ital (see Olds 2001). International migration and labormobility, and accelerated urbanization involving rural-urban migration resulting from economic restructur-ing, are some of the examples of the agencies involvingpopulations. Development and dissemination of infor-mation and communication technologies such as cellphones, satellite dishes, and Internet connection can beseen as agencies of information. And, finally, the spreadof popular media such as television, cinema, music, anddocumentaries can be understood as agencies of culture(see, e.g., Castells 1996; Jameson 1997). Today, citiesthemselves are promoting globalization by creatingnew urban spaces for such agencies of capital, informa-tion and communication infrastructure, and labor(Sassen 1996, 1991; Annan 2001). We note here that ourformulation above is not vastly different from whatAppadurai (1990) had suggested more than a decadeago, that is, the phenomenon of globalization can beunderstood by looking at the relationships betweenwhat he identified as its five dimensions: (1)ethnoscapes (movement of people), (2) mediascapes(movement of images), (3) technoscapes (movement ofmessages), (4) financescapes (movement of capital),

Agencies of Globalization 113



and (5) ideoscapes (movement of ideas and ideologies).If the categories of images and ideas are collapsed into asingle category of culture, the difference with ourschema essentially disappears. We should note also thatneither Appadurai’s typology nor the one we presenthere may be exhaustive. To be sure, it may be possible toidentify other agencies and effects of globalization, butin our view, those are not likely to pertain to the domainof urban form as we have postulated here.

The ongoing debates on globalization and the pro-duction of urban spaces have mainly focused on net-works and flows (Abu-Lughod 1989; Castells 1996,1989; Appadurai 1996, 1990; Virilio 1997b; Clifford1992; Hannerz 1992; Luke 1997; Thrift 1996, 1994;Bingham 1996; Amin and Hausner 1997; Massey et al.1999). Although definitive analyses of the effects ofglobalization on urban form remain relatively sparse,some scholars have offered important insights. Onenoteworthy example is the work of Castells (1996,1989), who argues that in the new global and informa-tional economy, “space of flows” is becoming moredominant in our life experience than the “space ofplaces,” in which the majority of people live and where“form, function, and meaning are self-contained withinthe boundaries of physical contiguity” (Castells 1996,423). In Castells’s conception, the space of flows hasintroduced a culture of real virtuality that is character-ized by timeless time and placeless space, because “themore organizations depend, ultimately, upon flows andnetworks, the less they are influenced by the social con-texts associated with the places of their location”(Castells 1989, 170). Castells’ account for the restructur-ing of space and place, however, remains somewhatabstract without identifying how flows are mobilized(M. Smith 1994; Thrift 1995; Dicken et al. 1997). First,although global flows have effectively becomedeterritorialized, they are designed, activated, andlegitimated by networks of powerful actors (Sassen1991; Hamnett 1994), who are drawing capital, people,information, and culture into specific “social place” and“historical time” to fulfill their goals. Transformation ofurban space is one product of this cosmopolitan net-work, which is “completely multilinear” and of unevennature (Amin and Thrift 1992). Second, space and loca-tion may not be totally irrelevant in the intrinsic circula-tion requirements of capital. As proposed by Harvey(1982), a concrete “spatio-temporal fix” is needed toenable disembedded capital to flow more easily. Thegrid of global cities (Sassen 1996) provides this “fix” forglobal finance capital. Since cities linked to this gridobtain more opportunities to absorb global capital, theyundertake major infrastructure and urbandevelopment projects to improve their global imageand become a node in this network.

Globalization, however, seems to be working at dif-ferent scales and dimensions. Appadurai (1990) claimsthat it is simplistic to think of globalization as a one-way, or even a two-way, process. The new global econ-omy has to be seen as a complex, overlapping, disjunc-tive order that cannot any longer be understood interms of existing center-periphery models (even thosethat might account for multiple centers and peripher-ies). Nor is it susceptible to single models of push andpull (in terms of migration theory), or of surpluses anddeficits (as in traditional models of balance of trade), orof consumers and producers (as in most neo-Marxisttheories of development) (Appadurai 1990).

Globalization also entails a form of global capitalistorder, supported by an ideology of market liberalism. Ithas two defining and interrelated characteristics: it isconsumerist and, to a large extent, postmodernist (inthe sense that it refers to the production and consump-tion of symbols, and not so much of material objects).

Agency of Capital

From the new central business district in Manila tothe high-end apartments in suburban São Paulo, theemerging urban landscape in many parts of the thirdworld reflects formation of the new capital stock. Trans-national capital is transforming the shape, form, andexperience of living in those cities through massiveinvestments and thus by altering the structure of thelocal economies.

Globalization involves increasing worldwide capitalflows through the international financial system andproperty markets with transnational corporations at itscore. In one year alone, the world stock of foreign directinvestment (FDI) rose to more than U.S.$4 trillion in1998, 20 percent more than in 1997 (United NationsConference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD]1999). In 1998, the overall FDI flowing to developingcountries amounted to U.S.$166 billion, accounting forone-fourth of the total. The breaking down of trade bar-riers and the increasing global reach of large corpora-tions have produced a world where production sitesmove to places where land rent and labor costs are lowand the return on investment is high (P. Hall 1999).

For developing countries, openness to trade andinvestment flows is the most potent catalyst for eco-nomic growth. FDI is highly desirable in the third worldas a means to facilitate economic development pro-cesses, to relieve domestic capital supply bottlenecks, toinduce new technologies and skills, and to provideurban environmental infrastructure and services(UNCTAD 1999; Olds 2001). To attract foreign invest-ment, these countries are not only dismantling the bar-riers to unfettered mobility of trade and capital but arealso offering an ever-increasing number of new incen-




tives and facilities such as tax benefits and special eco-nomic zones with preferential policies. Individual citiesnow compete against each other for international capi-tal and leading businesses, sometimes at the cost ofcompromising social equity and environmental justice.Facing this competition, many urban governmentshave shifted the policies from a management to anentrepreneurial orientation (Tibaijuka 2001).

There is a sizable literature on the economic global-ization, from both political economy and neoclassicperspectives. Optimists believe in the possibility ofmutual gains for the investor and receiving countriesand a spread of benefits worldwide (T. Friedman 1999;Micklethwait and Wooldridge 2000). However, theagency of capital is a mixed blessing. Observers indeveloping countries worry that in a borderless world,their wealth and resources will be depleted because ofthe voracious appetites of mass consumption in themore developed countries.

EFFECTS ON URBAN FORM

The literature on world systems theory (Wallerstein1984, 1974) and the world city hypothesis (J. Friedman1995, 1986) can be seen as the antecedents to the currentwritings on globalization. The former had considerableinfluence in shaping alternative theories of urbaniza-tion, primacy, and system of cities as a function ofdependent and hegemonic relationships between thecenter and the periphery of the world system (see, e.g.,M. Smith 1994; McGee 1971; Santos 1979). The latter isof a limited scope. For one, it focuses only on those citiesthat play a major role in articulating the relevantregional, national, and international economies into theglobal economy. These are only a handful and locatedmainly in the first world (e.g., London, New York,Tokyo, Los Angeles). For another, the primary empha-sis of world city research has been on the agency of capi-tal and, to a much lesser extent, on the other agenciespresented here. And finally, world city analyses tend tofocus on the implications of global city systems, urbanhierarchies and cultural identities, and related politicsand policy, rather than urban form implications. JohnFriedman (1995) makes us aware of such limitations bypointing out that world city research tends to focus onlyon the effects of global capitalism on one-third of theworld population and their loci (a handful of cities inthe first and third worlds) while excluding a vastperiphery (also see Knox and Taylor 1995).

The concentration of FDI in larger urban centersresults in regional disparities and crowded urban cen-ters. FDI is also observed to selectively benefit peopleand exacerbate social polarization and segregation(Greider 1997; Gray 1998; Luttwak 1999; Sassen 1996,1991; Santos 1979). Typically, cities present some of the

starkest of these contrasts. Those concerned with tradi-tions see the spread of transnational corporations suchas McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and Sony as the homogeni-zation of urbanism and culture.

As a new transnational actor, global capital engen-ders a tendency toward concentration of power, con-trol, and appropriation of profits (Sassen 2000, 1996).The international capital generates demand and pro-vides financing for urban development in certain areasand increases competition among cities. For these rea-sons, FDI plays a key role in urban transformations thatinclude changing the urban hierarchy, spatial disconti-nuity and segregation, uneven spatial development,environmental degradation, homogenization of urbanlandscape, privatization of the public realm, and transi-tional and hybrid urbanism (see, e.g., P. Hall 1998; King1998; Sassen 1998).

We note, however, that there are contradictory opin-ions in assessing the impact of the international capitalflow on third world urban form. For one, FDI has stimu-lated economic decentralization. In the context of firstworld cities, Sassen (1991) has observed that innova-tions in the communication technologies will lead tosuburbanization of manufacturing and other instancesof economic decentralization. Indeed, Dick andRimmer (1998) argue that globalization has made theconventional model of the third world city obsolete inSoutheast Asia. They suggest that the urban form ofSoutheast Asian cities is beginning to look more andmore like that in the West, including multiple urbancenters and gated communities. Nevertheless, arguingthat these interpretations are shaped by the models ofthe American city and economy, Chakravorty (2000)suggests that urban form and urban systems of the thirdworld bear no resemblance to these models. Further-more, there might even be no singular “third worldcity” because of the range of diversity these citiesencompass. As global space meets the local space of acity, the local particularities must be factored in to ourunderstanding (Dandekar 1998). In a comparativestudy of Accra and Mumbai, Grant and Nijman (2002)characterize the changing corporate presence as animportant manifestation of globalization. From a sur-vey of the foreign and domestic corporations in thesecities, Grant and Nijman identify three distinctive cen-tral business districts (CBDs) in each city that are differ-ently linked to the global economy. The local CBD,which has the highest concentration of small domesticcompanies, overlaps in large part with the old nativetown from the colonial times. Its corporate activitytends to be oriented locally. The national CBD emergedas the European town of the colonial times and was“nationalized” after independence. Although its maincorporate activity is more global, this CBD accommo-




dates big domestic-company headquarters and a sub-stantial number of foreign companies. In comparison,the newly developed CBD reveals a dominant globalorientation, housing the largest share of foreign corpo-rations and domestic multinational companies. Thecorporate segregation based on domestic and foreignownership, Grant and Nijman conclude, is a reflectionof the spatially fragmented integration of the less-developed societies to the global political economy.Elsewhere, and her earlier observations notwithstand-ing, Sassen (1996) points out that in some large thirdworld cities such as Bangkok, Taipei, São Paolo, MexicoCity, and Buenos Aires, this phenomenon of “exo-polization” is not occurring in the same way. Indeed,Sassen believes that these cities are experiencing a“seemingly endless metropolitanization.”

At present, capital and new production centers tendto concentrate in a comparatively few centers ratherthan being distributed evenly throughout the urbanhierarchy (Potter and Lloyd-Evans 1998). A new urbanhierarchy seems to be emerging where highest order cit-ies are the beneficiaries of global dynamics, whereaslower order cities continue to be shaped by olderendogenous forces. Third world cities in the higher tiersare now competing intensely to keep up their status inthe global network in order to attract transnational cap-ital. Metropolises like Shanghai and Manila, for exam-ple, are aggressively seeking to become global cities byimproving their infrastructure; by expanding theirCBDs; and by promoting rapid development in thefinance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sector (see,e.g., Dick and Rimmer 1998; Olds 2001).

The expansion and restructuring of the world econ-omy has led to a huge demand for infrastructure sys-tems, residential buildings, commercial spaces, andpublic facilities in cities experiencing this accumulationprocess (Armstrong and McGee 1985). In the 1990s,massive amounts of foreign capital flowed into specu-lative real estate ventures, leading to skyrocketing landvalues and rent levels. This has resulted in more spe-cialized and insular land use, as well as vertical growthwithin the urban core in unprecedented scale and veloc-ity in the leading cities. Some cities have experiencedsubstantial new industrial and commercial develop-ment in peripheral areas with formation of newsubcenters, for example, the Paulista in São Paulo orPudong in Shanghai (King 1998; HABITAT 1996).McGee (1991) invokes the “desakota”1 model in deci-phering the urban sprawl of the large and rapidlydeveloping Asian cities, in which urban-rural differ-ences are being erased because of the shift of labor-intensive industry from the first world to the thirdworld. He points out that if this trend continues, thelargest cities might even go beyond the familiar

polycentric pattern into a cluster of intensely relatedcity networks. As a result of these dynamics and as aconsequence of the influx of new capital, two oppositeand simultaneous trends have been observed in manythird world cities: concentration and deconcen- tration,urbanization and exurbanization (HABITAT 1996; P.Hall 1999).

Infusion of large amounts of foreign capital hasenabled rapid and large-scale development reflected inthe ever-growing skyline; a coarser grain in the urbanfabric; and, especially, the advent of megaprojects.Herod (1991) argues that “scale is produced as the reso-lution of processes of cooperation and competitionbetween and among social groups in building land-scapes” (p. 82). One of the effects of this urban competi-tion is that governments with such entrepreneurial atti-tudes will promote cities as products in order to makethem appealing to global investors, rather than regulatetheir development to improve the quality of life of itsresidents. The downside of this type of rapid develop-ment in many third world cities, especially in SouthEast Asia in the late 1990s, is its contribution to the col-lapse of regional economies, to the widening incomedisparity, and to the annihilation of historical districtsand traditional neighborhoods to make room for com-mercial megaprojects (Dandekar 1998; T. Friedman1999; Wu 2000; Yucekus and Banerjee 1998).

Increasingly, these emerging urban landscapes con-verge in appearance as gleaming “citadels” symbolic ofthe prosperity of transnational corporations (Soja 1995;Marcuse 1997). They are designed by the same expertsystem of elite architects (Olds and Yeung 1999) whoreceive commissions throughout the world from entre-preneurial governments eager to promote the image oftheir cities. Marcuse and van Kempen (2000) point tothe prevalence of these citadels throughout the world:“From London to Shanghai, Los Angeles to KualaLumpur, Detroit to São Paulo, Paris to Bandung . . . cita-dels of government and business share the skyline” (p.253). As they offer freedom of operation to global inves-tors, these cities become the market landscapes of a newglobal competition. In creating their new images, “therepresentation of power, wealth, of luxury,” as Marcuseand van Kempen (2000) point out, “is inherent, as is theisolation, the separation, the distinction from the olderurban surroundings” (p. 253).

Global capital and transnational corporations intro-duce to the third world new forms of corporate “publicspace” such as plazas and shopping malls that are pri-vately owned and treat the public as consumers(Banerjee 2001). Ormond (2001) reports how the socialactivities of the young and educated urban Moroccansare shifting from traditional public spaces to places likeMcDonald’s. Literature focusing on the Western con-




text highlights the decline of the traditional publicspace and realm and blurring of the boundary betweenpublic and private (see, e.g., Banerjee 2001), whereasDrummond (2000) challenges the uses of the terms pub-lic and private in the context of Vietnamese urban life,because real public space in Vietnamese cities is actu-ally lacking (also see Shannon 2001). Drummond fur-ther contends that the Vietnamese cities actually show adual tendency. Unlike the Anglo-American urban expe-rience, these cities are experiencing a resurgence, ratherthan a decline, of street life, while adding to their stockof “pseudo-public” corporate leisure spaces. Accordingto Shannon (2001), “the ‘global village’ has becomemerely another layer while the local street has retainedits identity as a local street” (p. 4).

Residential space in third world cities has also wit-nessed effects from the global capital flow, in terms ofaffordability, consumer preferences, and design aes-thetics (Dick and Rimmer 1998; King 2000, 1998; Woods1998). To market high-end housing, developers elabo-rate transnational images through preferable (oftensuburban) locations, safe and sanitized neighborhoods,and European and American nomenclature and archi-tectural styles. The designated buyers are mainly whatSklair (1991) calls the “transnational global elite” and,in some cases, overseas workers.

The benefits of capital mobility spread unevenly. Theagencies of capital and the development of new sectorsresult in polarization in income, which is representednot only in increasing spatial segregation but also in thesimultaneous convergence and divergence in lifestyles(Armstrong and McGee 1985)—the elite and upperincome groups are following the consumption patternof North America and Europe, whereas living stan-dards for unfavorable groups go even lower.

Agency of People

The second agent of globalization is the movement ofpeople across and within national boundaries. Bothtypes of population movements have important effectson urbanism and urban form. There is a sizable litera-ture on the effects of internal migration—especiallyrural-urban migration—on urbanization, primacy,urban form, and the urban hierarchy of cities in nationalurban systems. Typically, this literature has considereddynamics of internal migration within the closed sys-tem of cities defined by the territorial limits of a nation.But lately, it is recognized that the internal migration ofpopulation often may be a function of the political econ-omy of trade and dependency within a world system(see, e.g., Castells 1977; N. Smith 1992; M. Smith 1994;Wallerstein 1988; McGee 1995; Santos 1979). A compre-hensive review of this literature is not warranted in thescope of this article, because we want to focus here

mainly on the international migration of populations asa principal dimension of globalization. We will, how-ever, return to the theme of internal migration later inour discussion of the various contingent effects of glob-alization on urban form and urbanism of developingeconomies. The international population movementhas several facets: immigration or emigration; refugeepopulations; tourism; and nonimmigrant visits forbusiness, education, seasonal employment, or socialpurposes. In the development literature, implicationsfor international economic integration for the workersof the world are an important issue. These includethreats for workers, as recently expressed in both orga-nized and grassroots opposition to the North AmericanFree Trade Agreement or NAFTA(U.S. House 1993) andthe World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as oppor-tunities for international migration, which has indeedpeaked in the second half of the previous century (seeWorld Bank 1995). From the macroeconomic perspec-tive, international migration should benefit both thehost and receiving countries. The former benefit from ahigher productivity of labor, relative to the wages theyare willing to accept (because it still significantlyimproves their earning power relative to wages theywould get in their countries of origin). The latter benefitfrom the remittances sent home, thus increasing theoverall income level and new demands forconsumption goods.2

Before we explore specific urban form implicationsof this particular agent of globalization, it will be usefulto briefly review the extent and parameters of interna-tional migration, especially in the latter part of thetwentieth century, which has been referred to as the“age of migration” (Castle and Miller 1993). We canderive the following observations from Zlotnik’s (1998)extensive review of the trends and parameters of inter-national migration during 1965 to 1996. It seems that,worldwide, the number of estimated foreign-born pop-ulation (a proxy for immigration) has increased some 60percent from a little more than 75 million in 1965 toalmost 120 million in 1996. But in the grand schema ofthings, the migrant population is a relatively smallamount—a little more than 2 percent—of the totalworld population, although the annual rate of changein this population has steadily increased during threedecades, from 1.2 percent to 2.6 percent. One otherinteresting point is that although the immigration fromsouth to north remains a major political issue in manyWestern countries, immigration within the south con-stitutes the larger share of the total world immigration.Most of the massive refugee movements resulting fromthe end of the colonial era; communal and politicalstrife; and natural and man-made catastrophes such asdroughts, floods, earthquakes, famines, and enduring




poverty have taken place within the south. Regionalprosperity like that of the Gulf States, East Asia, andsome African nations continues to sustain the south-south migrations.

International migration, however, is but one aspectof the globalizing effects of the agency of people. Ever-increasing tourism and business trips, as reflected ingrowing volumes of air travel, are some of the other,and probably more dominant, facets of this agent. Butwhat does all this mean for our understanding of thetransformations in urban form? The following are someemerging trends in urban form and urbanism that canbe directly (albeit not exclusively) attributed to the pop-ulation agencies of globalization.


One of the earliest attempts to link this particularagent of globalization to urbanism and urban form wasin Anthony King’s (1976) British model of colonialurban development in India. Using the “culture con-tact” model where the institutions of exogenous colo-nial culture confront indigenous institutions, King hasargued that resultant urban form is a product of thisinteraction, leading to urban forms and urbanism thatare not necessarily cohesive or coherent. The usual out-come of this process has been the familiar dualisticurban form ,3 even though a colonial “third culture”—one that combines aspects of the alien and indigenouscultures—may permeate the consequent urbanism.Zeynap Çelik’s (1997) work in Algeria and GwendolynWright’s work on Morocco (1991) also suggest similardualistic structure and hybrid urbanism, although nei-ther of them has suggested the urbanism of “third cul-ture” proposed by King. Certainly we should revisitthese conceptual models to examine the effects of con-temporary globalization on urban space and life, espe-cially if it can be argued that the economic integration is,in fact, a form of neocolonialism where the north-southrelationship remains fundamentally asymmetric andhegemonic. In a phenomenological interpretation of theglobalization process from below—from the perspec-tive of those who are poor, underclass, and not “seen”by the radar of social sciences—Mendieta (2001) arguesthat we should also be aware of the “invisible cities”within the more visible cities of globalization.

As King (1998) notes in a recent article, these“diasporic designs” represent a “constructed dreamcultures of (or for) the NRI,” the term NRI being theacronym commonly used in India to refer to expatriatenonresident Indians. Comments King,

The “international” nature of facilities is matched by the“international” (though mainly Euro-American) signify-ing nomenclature used to market the developments—Bel

Air, La Hacienda, Villa Del Mar, Belvedere, Riviera,Manhattan, as well as a rich sprinkling of Anglicizedpseudo-aristocratic names—Burlington, Somerville,Sinclair, Eden Gardens (rather than the garden of Eden).(P. 28)

And there is also a new “third culture” of globalizationthat pervades the spaces of the indigenous matrix,which Benjamin Barber (2000) would describe as theMcWorld culture (that of fast-food chains, discos, musicvideos, Internet, hairstyles, and dress fads), also aptlycaptured in the writings of Pico Iyer (2000).

Finally, as we have noted earlier, globalization alsomay trigger internal migration, because of structuralchanges in the rural and agricultural economy. This hasseemingly exacerbated the polarization and incomeinequality in the urban population. Many third worldmegacities continue to grow and expand, propagatingnew urban sprawl, much of which remains poor hous-ing stock, deficient in urban infrastructures (Lungo andBaires 2001; Sabatini et al. 2001). In cities of Latin Amer-ica, a new segregation is under way with two interest-ing features. On one hand, demand for luxury housinghas prompted developers to encroach on old peripheralfavela lands to build new gated communities sharplydelineated from the surrounding poor neighborhoods,whereas on the other hand, a new “favelization” isunder way, seemingly to house growing urban popula-tion and not any new rural-urban migration. Thus, seg-regation in urban space can be seen as another outcomeof globalization (Oliveras and Núñez 2001; Corrêa doLago 2001; Villaça 2001). According to Chakravorty(2000), however, the failure to integrate the local econ-omy into the global market may also cause a moreuneven spatial distribution of production facilities,thus increasing the risk of aggravating the misery of theurban poor.

One aspect of homogenization that extends thenotion of globalization beyond the consumption ofimages or products is what Hebdige (1990) refers to asthe disintegration of traditional markers of collectiveidentity, such as nation and class. He blames theonslaught of global media, which has the power “tomove people not just to buy the products of the culturalindustries, but to buy into networks that offer forms ofcommunity and alliance which can transcend the (old)confines of class, gender, regional and national culture”(p. 90). At the same time, the agency of populationmovement is increasingly leading to cities of ethnicdiversity and multicultural identity. The urban spaceand form of emerging “cosmopolises”—as suggestedby Sandercock (1998)—are posing new conflicts andcontradictions, and indeed new challenges, for plan-ning and urban design in many parts of the world.




Agency of Information and Communication Technology

Information and communication technology (ICT) inthis study refer to the set of activities facilitated by elec-tronic means with the processing, transmission, anddisplay of information (OECD’s ICCP panel),4 such asmicroelectronics, computing, telecommunications, andbroadcasting. ICT has emerged as a set of conduits forflows of images, knowledge, information, and symbolsthat integrate places and people into the global systemin “real time” (Graham and Marvin 1996, 2). Recentworks (e.g., Castells 1997, 1996; Dicken 1998) locateICTs at the center of developments in the global econ-omy. In many areas, ICT has seamlessly diffused intoevery aspect of urban life.

Graham and Marvin (1996) distinguish four domi-nant approaches in investigating the role of ICT andurban development: technological determinism, futur-ism and utopianism, dystopianism, and socialconstructionism. Scholars are discussing the blurring ofurban places and electronic spaces, the disorientatingand alienating effects, the intensified social control andsurveillance, and the social polarization and commer-cialization under way in the Western cities. Meanwhile,developing countries and disadvantaged groupswithin countries are increasingly alarmed by an emerg-ing “digital divide,” in which those without access tothe latest technologies and information are denied theopportunity to compete in the global marketplace andenjoy the ICT-improved services (Digital DivideNetwork 2002).

In a study carried out for the World Bank, Rodriguezand Wilson (2000) report that all developing countriesare improving their access to, and use of, modern ICTs,some at a dramatic rate. However, the gap between therich Organization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) countries and the poor develop-ing countries keeps growing, both in terms of ICT prod-ucts and of incomes. The evidence shows that althoughthe average OECD country has roughly 11 times the percapita income of a South Asian country, it has 40 timesas many computers, 146 times as many mobile phones,and 1,036 times as many Internet hosts. Technologicalinvestment and human capital are also much better indeveloped economies. For instance, OECD economiesinvest 9 times as much of their income in research anddevelopment and have roughly 17 times as many tech-nicians and 8 times as many scientists per capita as theeconomies of sub-Saharan Africa.


Much has been written on the utopian “virtual com-munity” freed from the constraints of time and space(see, e.g., Martin 1978; Dutton et al. 1987; Rheingold

1993, 1991; Wilbur 1997). A city might no longer haveany imaginable form or definable boundary (Gibson1984). On one hand, ICTs have allowed deterri-torialization (Guaratti 1992) or even dematerializationof a city by the vast, rapid flows of information that sub-stitute and monitor physical flows and reduce thedependence on physical propinquity and social con-tacts. Associated is the growing loss of a sense of place(e.g., Boyer 1996) and the dissolution of architectureand the process of city planning (Virilio 1997b; Deleuze1992). On the other hand, even industries that rely mostheavily on ICTs, such as finance, are installed onlypartly in electronic space. Although the literature tendsto underplay the physical dimension (Douglass 2000),the growing digitalization of economic activities hasnot eliminated the need for improving the built envi-ronment to host these global activities and all the mate-rial resources and people they concentrate (Castells1989; Graham and Marvin 1996; Sassen 1998). There-fore, Graham and Marvin (1996) claim the contempo-rary city to be “an amalgam of urban places andelectronic spaces” (p. 379).

Some scholars have argued that ICT actually pro-motes simultaneous spatial dispersion and concentra-tion (Castells 1989; Graham and Marvin 1994; Sassen1991). Territorial dispersion is increasing with the flexi-bility in production brought by ICTs (Castells 1989;Daniels 1993; Marshall et al. 1988). Nevertheless,Sassen (2001) argues that the uncertainty and increasedpressure of speed in many of the leading sectors con-tribute to a new logic for spatial agglomeration. Theavailability of ICT facilities has resulted in the central-ization of the most advanced users in the mostadvanced ICT centers (Castells 1989). The emergence ofglobal cities and the extremely high densities evident inthese cities’ downtown districts are the spatial expres-sion of this logic. Instead of the dichotomy of centraliza-tion versus dispersion, Graham and Marvin (1996) triedto capture the complex and contradictory nature of thecity-telecommunications relations in four key aspects:physical and developmental synergies, substituteeffects, generation effects, and enhancement effects. Instudying the “urban-edge-forms” of the emerging Sili-con Valleys of the developing world—Bangalore andGuadalajara, in this instance—Audirac (2003, 2002)concludes that these new developments are symbolic ofthe polarizing and exclusionary nature of the globalinformation economy. The result is the growth of privi-leged and segregated spatial enclaves that furtherexacerbate the already dualistic nature of many of thesecities.

Boyer (1996) identifies the spatial and temporaldisjunction of the well-designed nodes and the in-between blanks in the cybercities, for example, the “lag-




times”5 and colonial “nonplaces” in the city center. Sheattributes these “truly invisible spaces” to “the effects ofa willful dismemberment” rather than natural bipolarplaces of uneven development. Hence, she perceivesthe cybercities as a mixture of “cyber space and urbandystopia” (pp. 20-21). Although Boyer develops theargument on urban fragmentation and temporaldisjunctions based on the postmodern cities only, wenotice similar phenomena in the third world. In a largerscale, many cities in developing regions have been for-gotten when limited third world cities are integratedinto the global matrix. Within the newly created globalnodes, more lag-time places can be observed. Unfortu-nately, the literature falls short in examining this topicin third world cities.

Castells (1996) suggests the space of flows as thedominant spatial form of the network society, in whichthe megacity is a significant type of the diversifiedinformational city. He gives the Pearl River Delta inChina as an example of megacities, which are character-ized by the “distinctive feature of being globally con-nected and locally disconnected, physically andsocially” (p. 407). According to Mollenkopf andCastells (1991), megacities are discontinuous constella-tions of spatial fragments, functional pieces, and socialsegments. Nevertheless, multiple communication linksform the backbone of this spatial unit by providing theinternal linkage and the connection of the whole systemto the global economy. In this way,

flows define the spatial form and the processes. Withineach city, within each area, processes of segregation andsegmentation take place, in a pattern of endless variation.But such segmented diversity is dependent upon a func-tional unity marked by gigantic, technology-intensiveinfrastructures. (Castells 1996, 409)

Some observers worry that the richness of urban lifemight reduce to the flatness of the scanscape (Burrows1997). Urban experiences and memories might bediversely “mediatized” (Burgin 1997; Guaratti 1992;Ostwald 1997), leading to an “overexposed, phantomcity” (Virilio 1997b) without the real intuitions of urbanlife.

Castells (1996, 418) argues that the emergence of thespace of flows, which promotes ahistorical, aculturalarchitecture, is blurring the meaningful relationshipbetween architecture and society. Consequently,postmodernism, which selectively draws from historicelements purely for the sake of formal harmony ratherthan any real meaning, could be considered an exampleof this new architecture of space of flows (Saunders1996, as quoted by Castells 1996).

In terms of the power structure, the elites start todominate the third layer of the space of flows. This elitegroup forms its own secluded communities by pricebarrier and creates a lifestyle, as well as spatial forms, tounify the symbolic environment of the elite around theworld. The results are architectural homogeneity and“nudity” in this environment, where the buildings look“so neutral, so pure, so diaphanous, that they do notpretend to say anything” (Castells 1996, 420).

Is the disciplinary breakdown entailed by thecyberspace enhancing democracy while reducing thedemand for social contact and public space? Habermas(1998) defines public sphere as a part of social life whereaccess is guaranteed to all citizens. Therefore, futuristsimagine that a limitless public space accessible to allwill represent “spirit of community” (D. Foster 1997).More practically, within the realm of government andthe economy, scholars explore new possibilities for gov-ernance with fundamental changes in power structureand the opening up of ICT communication as amedium, particularly for those marginalized by exist-ing power structures (e.g., Loader 1997). By examiningthe practice of South African governments, Martin Hall(2000) finds “little evidence that ‘being digital’ is lead-ing to greater democratization” (p. 468). There exists thepossibility of an “information aristocracy” (Carter1997), totalitarian control (Virilio 1997a), and increasedbureaucratic surveillance rather than a digitaldemocracy.

Utopian writers develop cyberpunk fantasies of the“electronic cottages” or the “smart homes” (Toffler1980), which allow people to retreat to the cocoons ofsafe suburban homes and connect with the outsideworld only through ICTs. Cities are undergoing the lossof “third places,” like coffee shops and taverns, thatoffer opportunity for informal contact (Oldenberg1991). Concurrently with this trend of antiurbanismand the demassified society, we also observe peopleretreating from the real community to the commercial-ized theme-parking of public space with controlledatmospheres and increased surveillance (e.g., Banerjee2001; Knack 2000; Jackson 1994; Sorkin 1992). However,defenders of the virtual community refer to the demiseof the traditional community and “the hunger for com-munity that grows in the breasts of people around theworld as more and more informal public spaces disap-pear from our real lives” (Rheingold 1993, 6), as oneexplanation for the popularity of virtual communities.

Other scholars (see, e.g., Mitchell 1995) draw an anal-ogy between a real community and virtual ones, claim-ing that public cyberspace with accessibility, friendli-ness, freedom of action, and some public control may bejust like what Kevin Lynch (1984) defined for a good




public space. In this sense, the cyberspace is just the vir-tual extension of the older traditions, rather than aunique domain.

The cybercafé phenomenon has been perceived as anew public cyberspace. Betzen and Askwarn (1997)regard cybercafés as “a public sphere within a publicsphere” because inside the physical confines of the café,people are making face-to-face contacts and at the sametime are also communicating with others in distanceusing a computer interface. Martin Hall (2000) reports asubstantial operation of cybercafés and a wide range ofuser groups even in South Africa. Furthermore, Hallforecasts that South Africa’s digital culture will emergeas a new combination of the cosmopolitan and the dis-tinctly local—a mixture of global expressions andfamiliar regional characteristics. Ormond’s study(2001) also highlights the global and local collisions andadaptation of philosophies, behaviors, and practicesoccurring in contemporary reconfiguration of “public”spaces and associates it with “young, educated, middle-class, urban Moroccans.”

Many theorists argue that the economic growth indeveloping areas can be enhanced by ICT. Indeed, itsabsence may impair economic growth (World Bank2000). Some cities will gain their global competitivenessat a cost of growing inequality and growing fragmenta-tion of urban civic culture (see, e.g., Sassen 2000). And,because some segments of the developed countries willremain out of the newly connected worlds, as well asthe major part of the developing countries, Castells(2000) develops the concept of “the Fourth World,”which

is composed of people, and territories, that have lostvalue for the dominant interests in informational capital-ism. . . . This fourth world of social exclusion, beyondpoverty, exists everywhere, albeit in different propor-tions—from the South Bronx to the shanties of Jakarta.And there is a systemic relationship between the rise ofinformational, global capitalism, under current historicalconditions, and the extraordinary growth of social exclu-sion and human despair. (Pp. 164-65)

As Dertouzos (1997) points out, “Left to its owndevices, the information marketplace will increase thegap between rich and poor countries and between richand poor people” (p. 241).

Agency of Culture

The fourth agency in our proposition is that of cul-ture. The elements of this agency are the global flows ofpopular music, movies, TV shows, video games, fash-ion, and tourism. These cultural agencies go hand in

hand with the ideology of mass consumerism and bothcurrently have a global reach without precedent inhuman history. Although the spread of cultures overthe globe dates back to the dissemination of humansocieties in prehistoric times, today’s spread is unprece-dented—thanks to the time-space compression broughtabout by communication technologies (Harvey 1989)and the unstoppable resolution of the transnational cul-tural industries to increase profit margins. All evidencepoints at the fact that under the influence of globaliza-tion, Western consumer culture is spreading at greatspeeds across national borders. Held et al. (1999), forexample, note that

there is no historical equivalent of the global reach andvolume of cultural traffic through contemporary tele-communication, broadcasting and transport infrastruc-tures (p. 327). . . . No historical parallel exists for suchintensive and extensive forms of cultural flows that areprimarily forms of commercial enrichment andentertainment. (P. 368)

All evidence points at the fact that under the influenceof globalization, Western consumer culture is spread-ing at great speeds across national borders (Robertson1992).

Although there are different views on the globaliza-tion of culture, three main perspectives prevail: that of“hyperglobalizers” (Benyon and Dunkerley 2000;Hamelink 1983) who forecast cultural homogenizationas an outcome of the influence of Western media andconsumerism on the rest of the world, that of “sceptics”(e.g., Castells 1977) who regard the impact of global cul-ture as rather superficial, and that of “transforma-tionists” (Appadurai 1990; Hannerz 1991; Held et al.1999, in Benyon and Dunkerley 2000) who predict theemergence of new and exciting global cultural net-works that may result in cultural “hybridization.”Unfortunately, what these three groups have to sayabout specific effects of globalization on the urban formand urbanism in the third world is rather scant. Ourconclusions on the subject had to be indirectly extrapo-lated from their views on the globalization of culture.

Hyperglobalizers have the upper hand on what canbe said about the effects of globalization on the world;their most heralded theme is the homogenization ofculture and consumer products. Hamelink (1983), forexample, believes that cultural diversity across theworld might be obliterated and replaced by a culturalhomogeneity of the American type. And, consideringthat buildings and cities are the largest human artifactsproduced by humankind, the question arises as towhether globalization is also “homogenizing” urban




form and architecture. According to Benyon andDunkerley (2000), because the icons of American popu-lar culture are everywhere, it makes sense “to believethat eventually all cultural difference would be erasedand cultural sameness superimposed, fueled by theimmensely powerful, transnational media corpora-tions” (p. 7). Tomlinson (1991) refers to these ideas as “abroad process of cultural convergence in the cultures ofthe world” (p. 135).6 Appadurai (1990), however, con-tests this view, arguing that although globalizationinvolves the use of a variety of instruments of homoge-nization (armaments, advertising techniques, languagehegemonies, and clothing styles) that are in turnabsorbed into local political and cultural economies,globalization of culture is not the same as itshomogenization.

Hannerz (1991) assumes an intermediary position.He argues that due to the great increase in the traffic ofculture and of meaning systems and symbolic forms,the world is becoming increasingly one in terms of itscultural construction. Thus, a cultural icon, object, orideology may end up internalized by the receiving cul-ture as part of a “maturational tendency,” a processwhereby global cultural forms are absorbed and repro-duced by the local culture. Under this postulate, in theinitial stages of globalization, foreign cultural formscoexist alongside local cultures and eventually becomehybridized. This process is what Appadurai (1990)terms “indigenization”: elements of the cultural agencybecoming internalized and adopted as indigenous. Therelevance of this view for our present work lies in hisclaim that this is not only true in music, science, andspectacles but also in housing. Exogenous architecturalstyles and urban form eventually become assimilatedand transformed by the local culture. According toHannerz, this process is completed by the “local cul-tural entrepreneurs.” This process seems inevitable. InBeck’s (2000) words, “Local cultures can no longer bejustified, shaped and renewed in seclusion from the restof the world” (p. 47).

The above analyses beg the question for the observ-ers of globalization on how culture is being globalized.Castells (1996) suggests that in the globalization of cul-ture, there is an integration of all messages in a commoncognitive pattern where different communicationmodes borrow codes from each other: interactive edu-cational programs look like video games, newscasts areconstructed as audiovisual shows, trial cases are broad-cast as soap operas, sports games are choreographed fortheir distant viewers so that their messages become lessdistinguishable from action movies, and the like. Fol-lowing Castells’s observations, it is plausible thatimages of urban environments in popular media aremanipulated in ways similar to the marketing of any

other consumer good, thus influencing taste inarchitectural styles and urban form.

Other observers (Sklair 1991; Lury 1996), however,lessen the importance of the media in privileging theideology of capitalism. The emergence of a global cul-ture, they argue, is the direct outcome of late capitalismreshaping desires, creating needs, and opening up newarenas for capital accumulation. H. Foster (1985), forexample, sees globalization as an abject surrender tocommoditization, commercialization, and consumer-ism, and a blatant cultural degradation by the media,advertising, and communication industries in theirdrive to maximize profits. Armstrong and McGee’snotion of “theaters of accumulation” (1985) comes inhandy, if worrisome, when guessing the possible effectsof such concept of globalization on the urban form andurbanism of the third world cities; they stress the factthat cities alone do not generate processes of capitalistproduction and accumulation—they are only “the-aters” of those processes. Schiller (1991) makes a similaranalysis, arguing that cultural imperialism results fromtransnational capitalism and its insatiable drive for newmarkets and maximum profits. Nevertheless, Schiller ismore specific in pointing out that this imperialism isassociated with the cultural, economic, and politicalrole of the United States (see also Benyon andDunkerley 2000). In addition to music, the electronicreach of Hollywood, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Nike,and Adidas, among many other brand-name products,seems to be ensuring the spread of a “new world cul-ture.” Cvetkovich and Kellner (1997) attest to this idea,suggesting that “the consumer society, with is plethoraof goods and services, transnational forms of architec-ture and design, and a wide range of products andsocial forms is traversing national boundaries andbecoming part of a New World culture” (p. 7). Further-more, Giddens (1990) proposes that what is being soldto the third world is not necessarily American culture orAmerican products but the idea of selling itself.

What these authors do not include in their analyses,however, is the possibility that if products seen oradvertised in image-based media influence the buyer’sdecision to purchase a particular product, we also haveto entertain the notion that globalization equals “Amer-icanization” because what is undeniably American isthe concentration of ownership of global media andtransmission in the hands of a small number of Ameri-can corporations. Although pop music has become astaple consumer good produced in many regions of theworld, for example, today 70 percent of all music is pro-duced and distributed by a handful of huge Americantransnational corporations that integrate production,transmission, and promotion (as exemplified by MTV’sround-the-clock global diffusion of music videos via




satellite transmissions). For this reason, some authorscall this form of cultural diffusion not only “American”but “American media imperialism” (Mattelart andSiegelaub 1979; Mattelart et al. 1984; Schiller 1976).Although the literature does not offer an analysis wherewe can understand the relation between small-sizedcommodities and large ones (e.g., buildings) as culturalproducts, other authors shift from the influence of thecapitalist cultural industries to the impact of modernityas another agency of globalization.

This alternative view is offered by Giddens (1990)and Lyotard (1993), who suggest that globalization isactually an outcome of modernization. Lyotard (1993)argues that modernism is the factor that has contrib-uted to the adoption of urbanistic cultural values in thethird world. He views “modernism as another projectof European colonialism . . . linking modern architec-ture to an ideal of progressive realization of social andindividual emancipation encompassing all human-ity . . . a global reconstruction of the space of humanhabitation” (p. 47).


Modernism, understood as another dimension ofWestern culture, as explained by Lyotard (1993) mayshed some light on how the globalization of culturemay affect the architecture, urban form, and urbanismof the third world cities. Perhaps the best available evi-dence of the influence of the globalization of culturethrough modernization on urban form is the case ofLatin America in the latter half of the last century.

In those decades, and under the rubric of change andprogress, the military regimes of Latin America starteda crusade to modernize their cities. The alliance withmodernist architects and urbanists, trained in the inter-national style, produced massive blocks of ministriesand offices, steel and glass skyscrapers, freeways andairports, and residential urbanizations in a scaleunprecedented in the history of the continent (Segre1981). The international style became the architecturaltrademark, changing not only the look of buildings butalso the form of cities. Modern subdivision ordinancesand the construction of freeways and other major infra-structure projects transformed the older Laws ofIndies’7 urban pattern and older European trends intomodernized cities. The construction of Brasilia, the newcapital of Brazil, for instance, is but one example of thetype of projects the military elites initiated to catch onwith the modernism already rampart in Europe and theUnited States (see also Holston 1989; Vargas and Lopez-Rangel 1981). From the perspective of the transforma-tionists, it can be deduced, however, that moderniza-tion à la Americana may change. A growing literaturein the field of cultural studies tries to document alterna-

tive modernities in the developing world with theirown unique processes and trajectories transitioning towhat Hosagrahar (2001) calls “indigenous moderni-ties” (also see Gaonkar 2001; Ghannam 2002) as analternative to the common notion of Westernmodernity.

The effects of these modernization policies can beseen today in many Latin American cities. They showevidence of middle- and upper-class suburban residen-tial developments in inner-city and peripheral areas.Literature on the subject not only shows evidence of a“centrifugal movement of . . . high income groups awayfrom the center of the city” (Harris 1971, 61) with char-acteristics similar to the American suburb but also sug-gests that the new urban pattern is imported from theUnited States. Writing about this period, Gilbert (1994)denounces that

alien cultural practices . . . swept through [Latin Amer-ica]. Its cities have naturally taken on a similar look, notonly to one another, but also to the principal source ofnew technology, investment, and culture: North Amer-ica. . . . Differences are apparent but, apart from the writ-ing of the signs, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish thestreets of Caracas from those of Los Angeles . . . LatinAmerica’s affluent suburbs featured . . . California stylehousing during the 1950s and 1960s. Today, most elite res-idential areas feel much like North American suburbs.Indeed, the whole suburban life-style is imitative of theUnited States, based on the car and its associated retailstructures such as the supermarket and shopping andentertainment malls (p. 30). . . . [The Latin Americancity] . . . manifests a strong “dependency” relationshipwith . . . the United States. . . . Residential segregation,traffic congestion, and employment patterns are to someextent imported phenomena. [The] ever expandingsprawl, . . . shopping malls, cinemas and entertainmentcomplexes . . . look more and more like a North Americancity. (P. 6)

This Americanization by means of the modernizationof urban form denounced by Gilbert (1994) and otherssuch as Scott (1997) is nonetheless contested.

The impact of cultural agencies on the receiving cul-ture is yet another aspect that contributes to under-standing globalization and its effects on urbanism.

CONCLUSION

We revisit the framework we presented in Table 1 atthe beginning of the article to recapitulate our overallarguments and interpretive summary of the literature.This is displayed in subsequent tables (see Tables 2 and3) and may not require additional narrative. The gaps in




the literature, and indeed limitations of our framework,should be obvious.

Ironically, although growing consumerism andhomogenization are creating convergence across cul-tures, geographies, and economies, there are alsoenduring signs of separation, isolation, segregation,and income polarization. Immigration and rural-urbanmigration are creating new mutations in the urban fab-ric. Enclaves are formed to maintain or create new iden-tities of diaspora, or ethnic and religious solidarities. Asglobalization benefits the leading edge and integrates itwith the transnational society, the trailing edge oftenremains stationery, leading to income polarization,excluded from the global village. There are signs ofdecreasing social contact and increasing isolation

between people and neighborhoods. A different ver-sion of a dualistic society seemingly is on the rise, wheregated communities and exclusive suburbs coexist withslums and squatter settlements.

This review also raises some interesting questionsabout not only the nature of the interdependencies ofthese agencies but also the degree of variability of theirpenetration in the settlement hierarchy.8 At a globallevel, there is an argument that such influences mayactually follow the diffusion of innovation processes.Some authors (e.g., Soon 2001) argue that the cities inthe higher tier of a global hierarchy of cities in the thirdworld are more directly affected by cultural trends andtheir manifestation in architectural styles, whereas theones in lower tiers are followers of trends in the upper


TABLE 2. Relevant Concepts and Propositions Included in the Literature

Aspects ofDiscourse on Agencies of GlobalizationUrban Formand Urbanism Capital People Information (ICT) Culture

Urbanism Temporal polarization/timeless space, internaldynamics

Loss of local identity Placelessness, exopolis,edge city; commodifica-tion of culture

Image andidentity

Modernity, Westernlifestyle, borrowed style

Communities of diaspora,enclaves of expatriates,planning challenges for“cosmopolis”

Rise of new culturalstereotypes

Dual or hybrid

Spatial organi-zation andstructure

Changing urban hierarchy,urbanization andexurbanization, morespecialized and separateland use, vertical growth

Urban sprawl, housingdevelopment

Placelessness, simul-taneous dispersionand concentration,spatial fragmenta-tion anddiscontinuity

Placelessness, exopolis,edge city

Social ecology Increasing polarization andsegregation

Increasing polarizationand segregation

Increasing polarization ofclass, ethnic identity

Public realm De-emphasize public space,business citadel instead ofcivic realm, ambiguouspublic-private relationship,no street life

Emphasis on public lifein private realm

Virtual communi-ties, civitas ofcybercafés

Commodification ofculture

Pace and scaleof development

Enlarged scale of develop-ment: changing skyline,coarse grain in urban fabric(lot size, street width, etc.)

Enlarged scale of develop-ment because of housingand service demand

Architecturevernacular

Hegemony, reducing diver-sity, “business citadel”:symbolic use, redevelop-ment of traditional area

Increasing diversity Ahistorical,aculturalarchitecture,homogeneity

McDonald culture:reducing diversity;culture for place selling:increase diversity (butcommercialized to attracttourists, etc.)



tiers. The cities at the higher tiers, argues Soon, “tend tolead in the intellectual as well as in the artistic fieldsand, at the lower tiers, those cities tend merely to fol-low” (p. 268). Soon seems to suggest that these cities inthe lower tiers are more susceptible to be affected by thecultural influences of globalization.

Thus, cultural homogenization and mass consumer-ism may not be the inexorable fate for the third world, atleast in the interim. The World Trade Center disasterwill continue to underscore the inevitable tensionbetween class and culture exacerbated by globalization.In the absence of any larger political denouement of


TABLE 3. Examples of Corresponding Bibliographic Sources

Aspects ofDiscourse on Agencies of GlobalizationUrban Formand Urbanism Capital People Information Culture

Urbanism Dandekar (1998); Dick andRimmer (1998); T. Fried-man (1999); King (2000,1998); Woods (1998)

Iyer (2000); Mendieta(2001)

Boyer (1996); Burrows (1997);Burgin (1997); Guaratti(1992); Oldenberg (1991);Ostwald (1997); Toffler(1980); Virilio (1997b)

Gilbert (1994)

Identity andimage

King (1998); Olds (2001) Hebdige (1990);Sandercock (1998)

Castells (1997); King (2000)

Spatial organi-zation andstructure

Armstrong and McGee(1985); Chakravorty (2000);Dick and Rimmer (1998);HABITAT (1996); King(2000, 1998); Olds (2001);Perera (1998); Potter andLloyd-Evans (1998), Yeungand Olds (2000)

Çelik (1997) Castells (1989); Daniels(1993); Dutton et al. (1987);Gibson (1984); Graham andMarvin (1994, 1996); Guaratti(1992); Marshall et al. (1988);Martin (1978); Rheingold(1993, 1991); Sassen (2001,1991); Wilbur (1997)

Gilbert (1994)

Social ecology Armstrong and McGee(1985); Greider (1997);Gray (1998); Luttwak(1999); Marcuse (1997);Santos (1979); Sassen(1996, 1991)

Corrêa do Lago(2001); Lungo andBaires (2001);Oliveras and Núñez(2001); Sabatini et al.(2001); Villaça (2001)

Boyer (1996); Castells (2000,1997, 1996, 1989); Sassen(2001)

Castells (1997)

Public realm Banerjee (2001); Drummond(2000); Shannon (2001)

Betzen and Askwarn (1997);Banerjee (2001); Carter(1997); D. Foster (1997); M.Hall (2000); Jackson (1994);Knack (2000); Loader (1997);Mitchell (1995); Ormond(2001); Sorkin (1992); Virilio(1997a)

Sorkin (1992)

Scale andpace ofdevelopment

Dick and Rimmer (1998);Yucekus and Banerjee(1998); Wu (2000)

Castells (1997, 1996);Mollenkopf and Castells(1991)

Architecturevernacular

Olds and Yeung (1999);Soja (1995)

King (1998); Wright(1991)

Castells (1996); Deleuze(1992); Saunders (1996);Virilio (1997b)

Beng (2001); Cvetkovichand Kellner (1997);Gilbert (1994); Iyer(2000); Lyotard (1993);Mosquera (2001); Shortand Kim (1999); Tzoniset al. (2001)



these conflicts and tensions, planners and designers,meanwhile, will have to find ways to mitigate the con-tradictions of globalization in the planning and designof urban spaces and places. It is a formidable task. Thisarticle, we hope, is a modest beginning of a relevantdiscourse.

In our conclusions, we argue that beyond the task oforganizing the literature, the framework may also serveas a methodological tool to study the development ofthird world cities (and, perhaps, to take a renewed lookat some world cities in the first world). We also found,however, that the coverage of the effects of globaliza-tion on the urban form and urbanism of third world cit-ies is still limited and uneven in the literature pertainingto various fields. Although there is more informationabout the effects of capital investments and immigra-tion on economy and society, the impacts of the infor-mation and culture agencies remain less explored.

NOTES

1. McGee (1991) coined two Indonesian words, desa (village) andkota (town), for the new regions stretching along corridors betweenlarge Asian cities. During the urbanization process in Asia, the dis-tinction between rural and urban has become vague. The desakotaregions, which were originally agricultural areas, have been closelyenmeshed with the urban economy. They comprise an intense mix-ture of settlement and economic activity as a result of the linkagesbetween agriculture and nonagriculture, and investment seekingcheap labor and land.

2. According to one report, expatriate remittances can represent asignificant share of national economies—between 10 and 50 percentof gross national product in countries like Jordan, Lesotho, Yemen,and the West Bank and Gaza. In countries like Bangladesh, BurkinaFaso, Egypt, Greece, Jamaica, Malawi, Morocco, Pakistan, Portugal,Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Turkey, remittances are as high as 25 to 50 per-cent of their national export revenue (World Bank 1995, 66). Yet, thesame report also points out that the growth in the remittance-basedincome may at the same time further exacerbate income inequality,since the skilled migrants often come from the better-off strata of theirrespective societies.

3. See, for example, Castells (1977).4. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

(OECD)’s Information, Computer, Communications Policy panel.5. The lag-time places refer to the forgotten spaces left between

disparate developments. See Bhabha (1991).6. Castells (1977), for example, is skeptical of the “the role of new

western cultural values” and of “the attraction exerted by new typesof urban consumption [as] diffused by the mass media” (p. 58).

7. The Laws of the Indies of 1573 stipulated that all new cities willbegin from a plaza in the center, bounded by streets in the north-southand east-west direction defining the basic grid. The size of the plazawas to reflect the expected size of the cities (minimum size 200’ × 300’,maximum 532’ × 800’). The main church, military, judiciary, and otheradministrative buildings were to be located along the sides of theplaza. The church and the state were closely linked in the founding ofthese new cities. Important Latin American cities like Lima (Peru),Buenos Aires (Argentina), Bogota (Colombia), Santiago (Chile), Mex-ico City, and the like are notable examples. In a country like Mexico

and throughout Latin America, for that matter, almost every town—small or large—reflects this paradigm.

8. We are grateful to one of our reviewers who reminded us of thispossibility.

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Agencies of Globalization and Third World Urban Form: A Review