Globalization features economic, political, and technological aspects. Harvey defined globalization as “a political project” provoking “profound geographical organization of capitalism”. This space reorganization resulted from the reduction of time and cost by technological innovations, new physical infrastructure facilitating production, exchange, distribution, and consumption, and construction of territorial organizations by political status-quo regulating capital, law, and politics. Castells in turn specified globalization as a technological paradigm in which societies and the public sector have shaped the way technology was created and used but were also organized based on networks and digital communication. Castells believed networks formed an information society due to flexible, adaptable, and decentralized nodes. The global network, Castells concluded, resulted in significant structural transformations.
Harvey highlighted reasons for and characteristics of globalization. The deregulation of financial market in the US early 1970s and the breakdown of the Bretton Woods System decentralized the global financial system creating volatile conditions. Technological change and product innovation in the 1960s initiated the decentralization of the global financial and market systems and laid out the conditions for technological transfer and imitation across the globe. Media and communication systems de-materialized space, and so viewers started following international and financial news from their onset. Harvey coined this era as “information revolution”. These new financial, technological, and media systems drastically reduced the cost and time of the movement of not only commodities but also people.
Harvey also analyzed the implications of globalization as a phenomenon. Deindustrialization and relocation of manufacturing activities across the globe since 1965 had social, economic, and political implications and thus should be considered through differentiations, interactions, and relations across and within states. Harvey observed that uneven geographical development exacerbated existing contradictions within capitalism.
According to Harvey, globalization resulted in many negative effects. Social violence, unemployment, collapse of services, degradation of living standards, loss of resources and environmental quality are the effects of political and legal systems dominated by private economic interests over particular political forces. Other effects pointed out by Harvey but considered economically neutral are opportunities for small enterprises, offshore production, divisions of labor, specialization of tasks, centralization of corporate power, joint production agreement, increased labor force due to population growth and women employment, displacement of global population, hyper urbanization, change of state role, geopolitical democratization, new environmental & political legislation, and preservation and restoration of cultural diversities. Globalization also produced positive outcomes like the establishment of conditions for reform in political and economic systems, environmental consciousness, and dispersion of values of self-fulfillment and realization. The main dichotomies created by globalization were cosmopolitanism vs traditionalism, impersonal relations vs communications, and universalism vs localism.
Castells pointed out other positive effects of globalization. The new standard of worker became the one able to work autonomously and an active component of networks. The global village also transformed sociability. More isolated individuals became more individualist and self-directed. The public sector, in this context of increased private influence, reformed itself by promoting e-governance, a new learning process, and growing tensions between creativity and large corporations’ property rights.
Globalization changed urban planning. Hall stated that the 1950s and 1960s US regulatory planning derived from economic booms and focused on the control of physical growth. However, economic recession in the 1970s and 1980s changed planning since the US economy witnessed deindustrialization due to increased foreign competition resulting in shutdowns and unemployment. Hall called the new planning as “The City of Enterprise”. Each location then had to “encourage growth at almost any cost”. In Baltimore and Boston, for instance, downtown was revitalized, areas opened to immigration and capital, and bureaucracy kept at a minimum. Other initiatives turning urban areas into spaces for entrepreneurs were the “freeport solutions” like in Hong Kong, development of vacant areas as seen in London dockyard, and the establishment of a bottom up decision making process placing planners as servants of the public. The critique against this type of urban planning was that new residents did not develop a sense of place and history with the new location. Rotterdam in the Netherlands addressed this issue by incorporating social concerns through cooperative housing and encouraging local employment. Under Reagan administration, the Sunbelt cities were able to attract more immigrants from Mexico creating jobs, increasing commercial trades and overall income.
Harvey, D. "Spaces of Hope". Berkeley, 2000
Castells, M. "The network society". Center for Transatlantic Relations, 2006
Hall, P. "Cities of tomorrow". Cambridge, 1990
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