Thus, a Bangladeshi or Brazilian company could tender for the contract to clean the streets of New York, to run the hospital laundries of Germany or to staff a giant supermarket in Japan. Governments hate it. But, more and more, goods or services are no longer made in one place, but in dozens. In the end, reality will have to be accepted. The spread of innovations is, of course, immensely uneven.
Cities force technological change.
And they are transformed by technology. The technological revolution of today is such that the promise of the next century is more spectacular than ever before and the global city is at the forefront. Nigel Harris is professor of development planning in the Development Planning Unit, University College London.