ABSTRACT
In 1915 the pioneer thinker and writer on city and regional planning, Patrick Geddes, christened them “the world cities.” The world cities are the sites of the great international airports: Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle, Schiphol, Sheremetyevo, Kennedy, Benito Juarez, Kai Tak. As manufacture and trade have come to cater for a wider market so has another of the staple businesses of the world cities – the provision of entertainment. Each of the world cities has its great hospitals, its distinct medical quarter, its legal profession gathered around the national courts of justice. The staple trades of the world cities go from strength to strength. Associated with these trends, white-collar jobs grow faster than blue-collar ones; for every producer of factory goods, more and more people are needed at office desks to achieve good design, to finance and plan production, to sell the goods, to promote efficient nation-wide and worldwide distribution.
