Throughout history, cities served as the centers of civilizations, moving humans away from a primitive existence (Gunn 3/12/07). In certain cities, wider circuits of production, trade, and culture were organized. The first of these mini-world-systems was constructed around the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates, and the Indus Rivers (Abu-Lughod 401). Cities continued to grow and spring up around the world. Although the “Black Death” momentarily slowed this process, the Age of Discovery and the colonialism that followed allowed cities to expand, rapidly encompassing the New World and parts of the South Pacific and southern Africa. According to Abu-Lughod, the fact that cities lie at the center of complex networks constitutes their essential feature (399). Urbanization was

Another key feature of global cities involves their unique economic characteristics. According to Saskia Sassen, focusing on cities in an analysis of economic globalization signals the declining significance of the national economy as a unitary category in the global economy (409). There are numerous reasons why it is important to introduce cities in a discussion of economic globalization. The internationalization of commerce has led to a huge market expansion and a sharp growth in the globalization of economic activity (Gunn 3/7/02). This has led to an increased demand for services by firms in all industries, and cities are the preferred production sites for these services. This is due to the large available workforce, the infrastructure of facilities, and the telecommunication resources found in large cities that are a necessary component of advanced information industries and other sectors as well. The revolution of transport and communication in global cities is a crucial element in international business and finance (Gunn 3/7/02). Large global cities offer technological advancements and communication facilities that cannot be found in other cities and towns. These advances function to bind together a cities in a “geography of strategic places on a global scale” (Sessen 410). Recovering place, constituted in major cities, in a

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