ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the logic of thinking in terms of so-called global regions as the outcome of three complementary spatial processes at work in dividing the world: the world-regional, the political-territorial, and the urban-networked. It then pursues evidence for the empirical working of these processes. Finally, by using four empirical examples, the chapter suggests that global ‘gradients’ between regions provide evidence that the world remains divided into global regions even as these regions are the outcome of cross-regional transactions rather than just original differences between regions. The relative global location of a region signifies how much a given region is central or peripheral to the global political economy and how this has happened. Some global regions such as Europe and North America, particularly through their major cities and the governments and businesses located there, have a continuing centrality that has resulted in their generally higher average incomes and standards of living.
