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This paper introduces some new theoretical ideas to a literature that is just beginning to conceptualize globalization and cities as networks. The idea of networks is a fashionable one, but the idea is not new and has taken several forms over the years. This paper discusses some of the more recent and influential ideas about networks to argue for some new theoretical and empirical directions in the field of globalization and world cities. First, the shift from the idea of a hierarchy of world cities developed by writers such as John Friedmann to the idea of a world city network developed by writers such as Peter Taylor is discussed. Second, the paper provides a critique of the neo-Marxist account of globalization as a series of meta-networks advanced by Manuel Castells to expose the limitations of an approach that has been broadly adopted by several globalization and world cities scholars. Finally, it is argued that further progress in the conceptualization and empirical study of world cities and their networks can be made through an engagement with the literatures of actor-network theory and non-representational theory.

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The 'geography of law' is an emerging subdiscipline within human geography. However, the 'geography of law firms' and their functional capabilities remains strangely neglected in both producer-service and world-city literatures. In this paper we begin to address these gaps by investigating the importance of London in the globalisation of law and the uneven nature of that globalisation. We focus upon why, how, and where leading London law firms are developing world-city office networks."Ten years on we believe the key players will have substantial presences in ... Asia, Europe and the US. That will be the profile of the successful global law firms."

This paper develops ideas from poststructuralism, actor-network theory, nonrepresentational theory and complexity theory to begin to produce a topological consideration of cities in global networks. In other words, the paper argues that fluids and flows, actant networks, performances and practices fold the spaces and times of cities in ways that question the privileging of geometrical space (near and far) and linear time (now and then) in explanations of global and world cities. To reach a conceptualization of world city topologies, the paper is in four parts. First, space is set free and rethought as everywhere and folded into everything. Second, time is rethought as non-linear, multiple and folded into everything. Third, these new conceptualizations of space and time are mobilized to challenge the spatialities and temporalities produced through the political-economy approach of a writer such as Saskia Sassen. Finally, my rethinking of space and time in globalization is worked through to portray global and world cities as 'Bodies without Organs'. This spatial formation is seen to be one that connects and disconnects through networks and folds. Overall, my rethinking of space, time, globalization and cities produces a spatiotemporal pattern or topology that defies familiar geographical borders and temporal frames to point to the spaced and timed quality of relations that stretch.