ABSTRACT
These selections are essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the new global economy and its implications for international investment. This material focuses on the implications of global change for local economic and social conditions. Sassen argues that the current transformation in the world economy—the massive changes in communication and information technologies—gives major cities a new importance as production sites. Cities are the brains of the new global economy. They are the places where financial operations tend to cluster and the places where control and coordination are located. Sassen maintains that the combination of global dispersal of economic activities and the global integration made possible by advances in telecommunication technologies have created a new strategic role for global cities. A disturbing consequence of this transformation, however, is that global cities are developing a bifurcated class structure composed of highly paid professionals at one end and low-wage, low-skilled workers at the other.
