ABSTRACT
Emerging large cities of the world today are grappling with the conflicting logic of globalization and localization. Propelled by the infusion of international investment, finance, technology, and services, these cities are at a crossroads in terms of growth, development, diversity, income, and social divide. Developer-friendly policy, planning, and financial incentives are appropriating contemporary discourses about new cultural alternatives and identities in such mega-cities, while producing hitherto unknown urban forms that blur cultural boundaries. In Beijing, Shenzhen, Mumbai, Rio, Medellín, and many other large cities, social and cultural limits are being renegotiated as emerging networks of global trade and finance create new opportunity spaces. Under globalization, the question about “culture” hangs in the balance . . . The flattening of cultural geographies and its assumed effects are pushing towards creating a more homogenized world culture.
