The post-global city: Revisiting and reimagining the competitiveness and livability of primary central city centers

Edward J. Blakely, Richard HU

Research output: A Conference proceeding or a Chapter in BookChapterpeer-review

Abstract

COVID-19 may not have ended globalization, but it has disrupted and reset urban cities, shaping city-center geography forever. Large global interconnected metros reduced the physical connection of people and goods by boosting information technology, enabling a globalized knowledge economy less dependent on spatial proximity. This chapter examines COVID-19's effects on two valued global cities—Sydney and Melbourne, Australia—which lie outside the northern hemisphere's geoeconomic axis. We discuss how the transformation of the economic systems in these places adjusted central cores into more dispersed forms, creating increased socioeconomic and spatial fragmentation. Global digital transformation made cores of connected cities more vulnerable and fragile. This chapter shows COVID-19 is a dividing line sharpening the economic divides. Nonetheless, COVID-19 is not the end of global central cities, but it tests the adaptability and resilience of large metro centers like Melbourne and Sydney to reinvent their cores to remain globally competitive.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCity Innovation In A Time Of Crisis
EditorsPeter Karl Kresl
PublisherEdward Elgar Publishing
Chapter1
Pages1–14
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9781035327980
ISBN (Print)9781035327973
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2024

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