CHAPTER G3: TERRITORIES INTEGRATED INTO GLOBALISATION

« CHAPTER G3: TERRITORIES INTEGRATED INTO GLOBALISATION I.

A case study: the global city of New York City A.What makes NYC a global city? 1.

The origins of New York City’s powers NYC was born in 1624 as a Dutch colony under the name of Nieuw Amsterdam.

It became English in 1664 and was renamed according to the duke of York, future James II.

It is included in the State of New York but is not its capital (Albany); anyway, it is much autonomous from the State.

It is made of 5 boroughs, Manhattan (historical New York City), Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island that entered Greater New York in 1898. NYC rapidly developed as the most favoured gateway to the USA in the 19 th century. Indeed, it faced Europe and saw the entry of most European migrants.

In fact, most of them remained here as they did not have enough money to travel further in the countryside: in 1800, it held 60 515 inhabitants, in 1900, 3.4 mln.

This is symbolised by the Statue of Liberty, made by Auguste Bartholdi and Gustave Eiffel, and offered by France in 1886 as the symbol of the opportunity the USA represented for world migrants (see Emma Lazarus’ poem, The New Colossus, written in 1883 and fixed on its base) and by Ellis Island (now a museum) through which migrants were compelled to pass to be accepted in the country.

This has developed the ethnical diversity of the city, still visible in its spatial organisation with its community neighbourhoods born of the gathering of migrants to support each other in a new country, like Little Italy or Hell’s Kitchen for the Irish. 1.

The definition of New York City’s powers NYC possesses all the characteristics that make a metropolis. First of all, it holds 8.175 mln inhabitants within its 5 boroughs and 19.6 mln within its whole urban area.

It is the largest metropolitan area in the USA. More, it is the interface between the USA and the world thanks to a global multimodal platform with the international airports of JFK (world 20 th in 2019 with 62.5 mln passengers) and Newark, the national one of La Guardia, a port (7.4 mln TEU in 2019; US 2nd container port and world 23rd), a transmegalopolitan railway network, a highway network and a high-speed Internet network. It is not the capital city of the State of New York (Albany, a secondary town chosen to limit NYC’s power).

But nowadays it holds the headquarters of international organizations like the UN, the World Bank and the IMF. It is also an economic core with industries and services, the headquarters of national or foreign TNCs (45 among the world 1 st 500 ones like Verizon Communications, J.P. Morgan and Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group, American Express, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Foot Locker…), luxury shops (Macy’s, Tiffany’s, Bloomingsdale’s).

It overall concentrates high technology firm HQs like Meta (Facebook), Twitter/X… and news corporation HQs like WarnerMedia (CNN, HBO, DC Comics…), NBC, ABC, CBS…But it is also a financial core with the NYSE and the NASDAQ (the world 1 st 2 stock exchanges), many banks and financial services (Wall Street).

This power is marked in the skyline made of numerous skyscrapers, some of which are famous in the whole world: Empire State Building (381m, 1930), Chrysler Building (319m, 1928), Rockefeller Center (set of 19 buildings among which the Comcast Building, 266m 1931-1933, NBC HQ). It is a cosmopolitan space too, inherited from its role of the gateway of the USA: 1/3 of its population is immigrant, ½ of its workforce; ½ of it speaks another language than English at home.

It is symbolised by Chinatown or Little Italy… This is a “mini-world”. But this “openness” is not without tensions between the different communities.

Besides, there are also a lot of American people coming from any parts of the country, and overall from the more rural parts, for whom NYC means opportunities. At last, it has a world cultural influence: it keeps a lot of monuments from its past (Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Empire State building, Brooklyn Bridge), prestigious museums (the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art/MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum), the recent Memorial of the 9/11 (Ground Zero), beautiful spaces (Washington Square, Central Park), 88 universities (NY University, Columbia) and entertainment places (Time Square, Broadway with its musicals).

NYC is also the core of the US high culture (the Metropolitan Opera) and of a restless cultural life (fashion week, music/NYADA, New York Academy of Dramatic Arts).

There are international sports events like the US Open Tennis Championships (Flushing Meadows), performed in great stadiums (Madison Square Gardens), and with famous teams (the Yankees or the Mets in baseball).

That’s why tourism is very important for the city, 66.6mln in 2019. A.The spatial organisation of the metropolis of NYC NYC is behind the typical.... »