What’s on the Global Cities poster
A definition and 6 facts worth remembering.
Sassen's argument that dispersing production increases the need for centralised command, so specialised services concentrate in a handful of cities.
- Finance, law and accounting cluster tightly.
- Face-to-face dealing still favours proximity.
- They connect to each other more than to their hinterland.
- Polarised labour markets: high-end and servicing.
- Property prices rise faster than local wages.
- Ranked by network position, not by size.
- Argued by — Saskia Sassen, 1991
- Driver — producer services
- A firm can manufacture in twenty countries and still take every strategic decision on…
Educational reference. Global-city rankings depend heavily on which firms and flows the index chooses to count.
Questions about the Global Cities poster
- What’s on the Global Cities poster?
- A definition and 6 facts worth remembering. Sassen's argument that dispersing production increases the need for centralised command, so specialised services concentrate in a handful of cities. Finance, law and accounting cluster tightly.; Face-to-face dealing still favours proximity.; They connect to each other more than to their hinterland.; Polarised labour markets: high-end and servicing.; Property prices rise faster than local wages.; Ranked by network position, not by size.; Argued by — Saskia Sassen, 1991; Driver — producer services; A firm can manufacture in twenty countries and still take every strategic decision on…. Educational reference. Global-city rankings depend heavily on which firms and flows the index chooses to count.
- Who is the Global Cities poster for?
- Global Cities belongs to the Sociology section rather than to a school year, because law & society is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning globalisation can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the Global Cities poster?
- When a dispersed economy still needs a small number of places to run it. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so Global Cities belongs on the wall where that law & society work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with Global Cities?
- Risk Society, Culture: Flat or Plural and What Globalisation Means sit alongside Global Cities in the Sociology section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.Risk SocietyCulture: Flat or PluralWhat Globalisation Means
- Is the Global Cities poster free to download and print?
- Yes. Global Cities downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Sociology section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the Global Cities poster print at?
- Global Cities is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of Global Cities loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside Global Cities on the same wall.
Browse every Sociology poster, or start from the full catalogue.