Transcript Globalization and Local Development

Globalization and
Urban Development
Dr. Adnan A. Alshiha
Its all about decision making
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What is a decision?
Choices
Why we need to make decisions?
Scarcity
What is scarcity?
Limited resources facing unlimited wants
Why we need to be concern with globalization?
Externality
Definitions
Globalization: (Externality)
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People around the globe are more
connected to each other than ever before.
Information and money flow more quickly
than ever.
Goods and services produced in one part
of the world are increasingly available in
all parts of the world.
International travel is more frequent.
International communication is
commonplace.
Definitions contnd…
Urban: At minimum imply a dense
concentration (agglomeration ) of
people and activities.
 Why?
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Urbanization: Shifting population
balance between urban and rural
areas
Definitions contnd…
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Development: discovering potentials
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Economics: utilization of resources
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Politics: Public choices
Context for Urban
Development
Globalization
No ‘one - size – fit all’ definition
 Fusion of many complex
 Time / Space compression in contrast with
‘Localities’
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Can be viewed three ways:
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Economic
Political
Cultural
Context for Urban
Development Contd…
Characteristic of globalization
Social relation becoming more intensified
Redefinition of global – local relationship
“Economic” plays an important role
 Changing roles for nation- state
 Regional Disparities emphasizes
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Globalization modifies cities but , cities
also modify and embed globalization
within local context
‘Triggers’ Factors behind
Globalization
‘Trigger’ factors underlie globalization
and thus, urban change
‘Trigger’ factors are:
 Economy
– Most important
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New role for cities
‘Trigger’ Factors contd…
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Technology
– Emergence of telecommunications
– New international division of labor
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Demography
– Direct influence on urban development
– Movement of people shapes size, configuration,
and structure of cities
– Synonymous relationship between urban
dwelling and quality of life
‘Trigger’ Factors contd…
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Politics
– Cities reflect the political ideology of the
society.
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Social
– Social attitude can influence character
of town and cities.
– Can influence migration patterns,
internal structure of city.
‘Trigger’ Factors contd…
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Culture
– Increase in materialism
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Environment
– Exist at many geographical scales
– Threat of global environmental change
influencing urban infrastructure project
– ‘Local’ important too eg. local legislative
issues
Realities of the 21st Century
Donovan D. Rypkema
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First, the 21st century will be a globalized economy.
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Second, the most significant impacts of the global
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Third, there will be a rapidly growing demand for products
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Fourth, the areas of the economy that will grow, both in
economy will be local.
worldwide. But the manufacture of those products will
require fewer and fewer people.
output and in employment are these: services; ideas; one-ofa-kind products, individually produced; culture;
entertainment; communications; travel; education.
Five principles for success
The cities and their citizens who will
be successful in the 21st century’s
economic development will be those
that recognize the four realities
discussed above, and who respond by
embracing five principles.
The first principle is globalization itself.
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To adopt globalization as a principle
allows a city the opportunity to
identify which of its own
characteristics can be competitive in
the global marketplace and to
establish measures that reduce the
adverse impacts of a globalized
economy.
The second principle is localization.
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The definition of what “economic development” means needs
to be localized.
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It must be specific and measurable.
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Many local economic development yardsticks in the 21st
century will be qualitative rather than quantitative.
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Localization will always necessitate identifying assets
(human, natural, physical, locational, functional, cultural) that
can be utilized to respond to globalization.
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Those assets must first be identified, then protected, and then
enhanced.
Diversity is the third of these principles.
The concept of diversity has three different facets
in relation to economic development principles:
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As populations are more mobile and more diverse
there will need to be an accommodation of human
diversity in economic development.
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Cities must have a diverse local economy in order
to provide protection from the volatile patterns of
demand in the marketplace.
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With economic globalization as a given, Successful
economic development will specialize and
customize to meet the needs of diverse markets
rather than standardize and homogenize.
The fourth principle of economic
development is sustainability.
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Sustainability has for some time been recognized
by resource-based industries because they find it
necessary to pace extraction or renew resources
to keep the economy sustainable over the long
term.
A broadened principle of sustainability recognizes
the importance of the functional sustainability of :
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public infrastructure,
the fiscal sustainability of a local government,
the physical sustainability of the built environment,
and the cultural sustainability of local traditions,
customs, and skills.
The final principle is responsibility
The vast majority of efforts of enhancing a
city’s economy will take place at the local
level.
 This, then, requires that each city takes a
large measure of responsibility for its own
economic future.
 Certainly local government has a part to
play in that process, but so does the
private sector, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), and individual
citizens.
 Each should recognize the responsibility at
the local level to define and pursue
citywide and metropolitan economic
development strategies.
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Five Senses of
Competitive Cities
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In the past the economic fate of a city was largely
driven by locational and resource factors.
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Is it near a port?
Is there timber to be cut?
Is transportation available by waterway?
Is there metal that can be mined?
Certainly these and similar factors will continue to play a major role in
the economic future for many locations.
in the 21st century there will be a shift from
location economics to place economics.
– The most important variables will be qualitative and place-based
rather than quantitative and location-based. These are referred to as
the Five Senses of Competitive Cities and will, in the intermediate and
long term, have considerable impact on the economic health of cities.
The first sense is
the Sense of Place.
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Both the built and natural environment
will need to be used to express the
particularity of this place.
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There should be a feeling that this city is
neither “anyplace” nor “no place” but
“someplace,” unduplicated anywhere.
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Four hundred years ago the Italian
philosopher Giordano Bruno recognized
that “Where there is no differentiation,
there is no distinction of quality.”
The second sense is
the Sense of Identity.
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In economics it is the differentiated
product that commands a monetary
premium.
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A city that in the long term wants to be a
“valuable place,” however that is defined,
needs to identify the attributes that add to
its differentiation from anywhere else.
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The cultural as well as the physical
attributes of a city will be critical to that
differentiation.
The third sense is
the Sense of Evolution.
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Quality, living cities will neither be
frozen in time as museum relics nor
look like they were built yesterday.
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The physical fabric of a city should
reflect its functional, cultural,
aesthetic, and historical evolution.
The fourth sense is
the Sense of Ownership.
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If there must be responsibility exercised at the local level to
create and benefit from economic health, then there has to
be a sense of ownership of the city by each of the sectors.
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This does not mean ownership in a legal or property sense,
but ownership more broadly, or citizenship: a feeling of an
individual stake arising from that particular place and fellow
citizens.
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A former mayor, Daniel Kemmis — a US politician who is
also a scholar — wrote in The Good City and the Good Life,
“A good city has always been one that teaches citizenship,
in the deepest sense of the word, and such cities are not
only teachers, but are themselves always learning how to
be better cities."
Finally there is
the Sense of Community.
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A sense of ownership acknowledges an individual
benefit from, an individual stake in, and an
individual responsibility for one’s place.
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A sense of community acknowledges the
obligations to and interconnectedness with the
other residents of that place.
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Robert Bellah concluded in his book, Habits of the
Heart, “Communities, in the sense in which we
are using the term, have a history — in an
important sense they are constituted by their past
— and for this reason we can speak of a real
community as a 'community of memory', one that
does not forget its past.”
Your Thoughts…?
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How do you see Saudi cities cooping with
globalization?
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Is our cities administrative set up capable
of facing the challenges endured by
globalization?
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How do you assess the current urban
development efforts in Saudi cities?
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Any comments…?