The Global City Discourse in Urban Transformations

Just as many other cities all over the world, both Johannesburg and Delhi feature the vision of becoming global cities. These visions are the localized versions of global city concepts informed by academic discourses, international urban planning practices and globally circulating images of successful cities. In an empirical case study, local discourses on the future of the city show how these visions are transformed in the local context. The experiences from both case studies allow a more precise understanding of cities as active agents in globalization processes.

Anna Zdiara is a research associate at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.