ABSTRACT
During the last two decades there has been a growing interest in the role and nature of the dynamics of urban systems (Hall 2002). This interest was fuelled by the internationalization and globalization debate and is closely related to world-systems theory (see Wallerstein 1984; Chase-Dunn 1989). Given the adoption of the systems approach we can observe a shift from a focus on single cities to cities as part of city systems. Thus cities are being perceived as operating in network structures that in turn are also subject to spatial and temporal change. Related to this discussion, Friedmann (1986) formulated the ‘World City Hypothesis’. This was taken up by Sassen (1991), who focused on the highest ranking world cities. Although both authors discuss and examine the role of cities as nodes operating in a global arena, in her writings Sassen is more concerned than Friedmann with the impact that rapidly growing international relations have on the internal structure of a single city. She examines the social and economic consequences of these processes in ‘global’ cities like New York, Tokyo or London. In contrast to Sassen’s approach Friedmann is focused on the external relations of ‘world’ cities, their relative position vis-à-vis each other in either a network structure or a hierarchy.
