Global Cities: Cinema, Architecture, and Urbanism in a Digital Age (New Directions in International Studies)

In this volume, scholars from an array of disciplines critique the growing body of literature on the current process broadly known as "globalization". This interdisciplinary focus enables the authors to explore the complex geographies of modern cities, and to offer possible strategies for reclaiming a sense of place and community in these globalized urban settings. While examining major cities including New York, Tokyo, Berlin, Paris and Hong Kong, contributors insist that the study of urban experiences must remain as attentive to the material effects as to the psychic and social consequences of globalization. Accordingly, individual essays explore the implications of global culture for architecture, cinema and communication - but do so in a way that highlights the importance of the spaces between such metropolitan centres. These locations, the authors argue, serve as increasingly important "frontier zones", where an incredibly diverse set of actors converge and struggle for power and presence. Such a perspective, they contend, ultimately adds nuance and meaning to our understanding of the heterogeneous urban landscapes of these global cities.