Global cities at any cost

Global cities are all the rage these days, evidenced by the proliferation of reports to quantify them for popular consumption. What began as a theoretical construct of the scholarly left has been commoditized by an emergent discourse seeking to present the neoliberal city as unchallengeable. This paper examines the gradual corporate acquisition of the global city idea. What’s striking is the ideational power the global cities discourse has gained, merging business, academia and policymakers in the cause of ‘globalizing’ cities. This cause justifies costly state interventions in cities that only reinforce class relations, what I call municipal mercantilism. The goal here is to critically appraise whether or not the global city model is worth the destructive costs, and to highlight hidden opportunities for active resistance to municipal mercantilism. Contrary to neoliberal assertions of a passive state, municipal mercantilism requires an active state—one that could just as easily produce social goods. There is space for proactive change in this contest over knowledge, as an urban precariat resists the common experience of state repression and misplaced priorities.