“World cities under conditions of financialized globalization: towards an augmented world city hypothesis”

David Bassens is Assistant Professor of Economic Geography at the Free University of Brussels and Associate Director of Cosmopolis, an interdisciplinary urban research team on city, culture, and society. Geographically, Bassens and Michiel van Meeteren point out that the world city archipelago extends far beyond international financial centers, as the advanced producer service sector has expanded its global reach. The defining feature of world cities – at least from its political-economy perspective – is their role as ‘basing points’ for global capital from which ‘command and control’ is exercised over capitalist accumulation. The workings of financial space itself have profoundly changed by the globalization and virtualization of financial markets and the growing proliferation and trading of debt products and derivatives. ‘Emerging markets’ are arguably the best-documented example showing the growth of dedicated funds or similar in-house activities at investment banks since the 1990s at least.