ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the new lexicon of space and cities in globalization. Since the year 2000, the urban and regional literature has defined our global world as a formation of global city-regions – assemblages of economy and society seeking representation. For the purposes of this book, the ontology of the global city-region is necessarily plural: it is a ‘web of contracts’, different in nature and more extensive than in the times of the nation-state, involving multifaceted governments, global enterprises, services and networks. All are involved in the ownership, management and representation of different aspects of what cities are. Some are socially irresponsible and, like capitalists, use cities as investment opportunities. But others are responsible, like governments, towards their constituencies formed by citizens, social groups and localized interests. Their contracts (both written and implicit) relate to the space of places and flows, both material (housing, investments, people, goods) and immaterial (information, services, knowledge). Forming boundless functional spaces, the relational economy of flows has critical impacts on the political space: a new theory of multilevel relational contracting is therefore needed.
