Today’s mega cities are a physical meeting site for a range of new types of operations — business, political or cultural. As a result, some of the most novel trends of the century hit the ground first in these mega cities
Globalisation of economic activity seems to suggest that place — particularly place represented by mega cities — no longer matters. Development of sophisticated information technologies would have us believe that firms and workers can remain connected no matter where they are located. looking through such a lens of the urban economy in a global digital age, we should proclaim the end of mega cities. Given this generalised trend toward dispersal, how can one at the same time explain the growth of territorial power centresIJ
In the 1980s, when new information technologies were being introduced on a large scale, there was a simultaneous sharp growth also of people physically working in the central business districts of leading cities and international business centres of the world — New York, london, Tokyo, Frankfurt, São Paulo, Hong Kong, Sydney, Toronto, among others.
let’s take the recent example of New York alone. On April 22, 2016, more than 170 Governments — that included 60 Presidents and Prime Ministers — physically gathered in New York City to sign the landmark agreement to renew vows to fight climate change. There were members from leading corporations and civil society, all present in person to move further on the promise made in Paris last December of limiting global warming to 1.5-2°C. The outpouring of support was the largest ever single-day physical turnout in a city for a signing ceremony.
This fortnight at the Tribeca Film Festival, thousands of artistes also physically gathered in New York City. Ironically, it was virtual reality that made a big splash at this year’s Festival. Including virtual reality as an integral element of a film is an enormous development. It completely changes the way films tell us a story. The viewer can see and move where he wants to in a scene, in fact the viewer is the hero, the sidekick, the villain.
Film audiences had dismissed the impact of virtual reality because it reminded them of the disaster that was Google Glass or they still associated virtual reality with gaming. But the Tribeca Film Festival clearly beat the perception. This was mostly possible because New York in general has stronger ties to the global digital arts community than cities hosting other film festivals.
It was also a sweet homecoming in New York this fortnight for the front-runners in the US Presidential race, who each have deep ties to the city. Republican Donald Trump is a Queens native and Manhattanite whose last name is featured on real estate properties around the city. Democrat Hillary Clinton was a New York Senator for eight years, owns a home in Chappaqua and her campaign headquarters is in Brooklyn. Both candidates were physically present to campaign in the city — Clinton rode the subway, drank bubble tea and ate dumplings in Brooklyn. Trump visited his polling station where he cast a ballot for himself for the first time. Both scored victories in New York, thus moving closer to becoming their respective parties’ Presidential nominees.
Mega cities are territorial nodes that physically connect a large number of transnational communities. This fortnight, New York simultaneously has thus bridged across a global community of individuals fighting the battle against climate change; the city separately gathered an international community of digital artistes; and it also pulled in the physical presence of two opposing US Presidential candidates.
Incredible subjectivities arise from these physical encounters of people from all around the world. Today’s mega cities are a physical meeting site for a range of new types of operations, some pertaining to business and others to political, cultural, and other subjective domains. As a result, some of the most novel trends of the century hit the ground first in mega cities.
This is perhaps because these cities have an enormous capacity to bridge over global communities that connect strong networks of individuals together. I feel that the separation of workplace, residence and family groups causes a large number of inhabitants of mega cities to develop secondary weak ties with multiple community groups. High rates of change in residential mobility further dilute the quality of these ties with different communities.
For example, while living in New York, london, and Paris, I found that these cities are spaces of the global, and they engage directly with issues and communities of global relevance, often bypassing the national. These engagements are often spatially defined, further weakening or ending when the individual leaves the city. When I later moved to live in New Delhi, I was equally amazed at the density of weak social ties amongst inhabitants in this mega city. There is a well-recognised perennial superficiality to social encounters in Delhi — you air-kiss at cocktails and build status by a fat social (media) capital.
While strong ties are necessary for providing for our primary needs, such as food and shelter, such weak ties built in mega cities are extremely important as they can bring together elements of different cultural and economic landscapes in solving problems that would benefit a great number of individuals. But then why can every mega city not gather a global community of, say, game changers in virtual realityIJ Or host an institution that physically brings together leaders battling climate changeIJ Why is New York winning the gameIJ The annual art fair in Delhi draws the largest footfall in the world and yet has not produced any novel trend.
I feel that much of the hierarchy in the ability amongst cities to create a novelty lies in the degree of prosperity as well as productive purpose that is embedded in the weak ties that bridge across the communities of people they bring together. Purpose here is in the sense of objective driving the personal resolve or determination in people’s interactions to produce something useful.
A central productive purpose in a community, just as in an individual, establishes the hierarchy of its/his own values and priorities. A community without a clear productive or creative purpose is lost in the megacity syndrome of networks of urban chaos precipitated by sheer population size, urban sprawl, and competitive social projection. This is a new type of interurban inequality.
The writer is Chief Sustainability Officer for the group of companies, Jindal Steel and Power ltd.
She is a Global leadership Alumna of the World Economic Forum. miniya.chatterji@jindalsteel.com