Wie global ist die Weltstadthypothese?

Abstract

This paper is an empirical examination of the process of social polarization in global cities. Drawing on evidence from New York, London and Tokyo, Sassen claims that the processes of economic change linked to globalization are leading to a growing polarization of occupational and income structure whereby there is a growth of both the low-income and high-income strata paralleled by a decline of the middle class. Furthermore, Sassen states that the restructuring of the social urban and economic structure of global cities results in new sociospatial configurations, among them, gentrification and spatially concentrated poverty and physical decay. Using data from Zurich, Switzerland, it is argued that while Zurich exhibits social polarization as predicted by the global cities hypothesis, the extent of both the social as well as the spatial consequences of polarization in Zurich are not comparable to those described by Sassen. This paper highlights the distinctive effects in mediating the impact of global forces in the European, or more precisely, Swiss context.

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