The City: Centre of Economic Reflexivity

Abstract

Each of the four main theories developed in recent years to explain contemporary urbanisation - the ‘global city’, the ‘world city’, the ‘informational city’ and the ‘post-fordist city’ - has important theoretical and empirical lacunae. Instead, the raison d’être of the city in an economy increasingly liberated from the frictions of distance is as a centre of economic activity which relies on reflexive human action. The activities which can be defined as reflexive cut across the normal categories of activity ascribed to cities (services, informational, high technology, advanced services), including parts of these activities and parts of other sectors. This analysis calls for new categories of analysis and measurement of contemporary urbanisation.

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