The major world cities have developed beyond their former role as centres for international trade and banking to become: • Command and control centers for organizing the global economy, in p[articular the concentration and accumulation of international capital. The stock exchanges of New York, Tokyo and London influence the world economy.
• The preferred location for finance and specialized service firms, such as law, accounting, management consulting and advertising.
• A focus for advanced telecommunication technologies as well as infrastructure development. for example, they accommodate the infrastructure required by TNCs, such as fiber-optics, Wi-Fi networks and mobile telephone networks. they also host some of the world major airports.
• Sites of production for new, innovative industries, especially the new information industries, which have replaces manufacturing as dominant economic activity such as cities.
• Markets for the products and innovation produced. Those living in world cities are often the first to embrace the new technologies.
• A focus for media outlets with an international reach.
• Powerful centres of cultural authority.
• The home of world-renowned cultural institutions, such as museums, art galleries, universities and research centers. they also tent to exert cultural leadership via major film festivals, theaters and orchestras, opera and dance companies. • The home of major sporting event.
- In building the new global networks of production, exchange, finance and corporate services, TNCs have created a complex new hierarchy of cities by concentration economic power, business decision-making and corporate strategy development. Thus, the role of world cities as global command and control centres is often seen in terms of the distribution of global financial centres and the headquarters of major TNCs.
The 1980s was a period of deregulation and liberalization of global capital markets, together with a major revolution in telecommunication technologies. the combines effect was to significantly increase the mobility of financial capital and the intensity of competition among financial centers. The size of the stock market is a good indicator of the financial power of a city and its relative position in the global hierarchy.
The image above highlights two main trends: - The dominance of New York, followed by the financial power of London and Tokyo. - The emergence of a broad range of major but secondary world cities: Shanghai and Hong Kong.
It is also argues that the more globalized an economy becomes, the greater the concentration of central command function in global cities. In this respect, TNCs are seen as one of the most important elements of the new global command centres.