Between the "Global" and the "Local": On Global Locality and Local Globality

Abstract

This study offers new perspectives on the impact of global and local interactions on cities today. We look at two opposing ways of integrating global processes with the local functioning of cities. The first mode relates to a city representing unique local significance that is recognized and valued on the global scale. This globality is not economic but it affects the global interactions of individuals, institutions, and businesses in these cities. We term this type of city a global locality. The second mode is a city that serves as a local cultural and economic gateway to its region. Whether located higher or lower on the World Cities roster, at the local and regional scale it serves as both business center and cultural hub. We term this type of city a local globality. In this article, we discuss both city types using Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Jerusalem as examples. [

Glocal real estate market: evidence from European Countries

“…Locality does not exist on its own, it is not discovered, but emerges through contact with other local economies and communities whose significance has increased as a result of globalisation. Therefore, local processes are a part of a globally complex system composed of many interconnected processes that lead to local-global interactions (Wu, 2000;Chiu, 2006;Hsing, 2005;Zhu et al, 2006;Alfasi and Fenster, 2009). The impulses relating to localisation and location continue to evolve.…”

“…Global real estate products can be indigenised if they are adapted to local conditions. Through glocalisation, globality and locality can jointly and simultaneously encourage inter-nationalisation based on the globalisation of local products and the indigenisation of global products (Alfasi and Fenster, 2009). During the indigenisation of global products, locality generates numerous benefits for glocal entities.…”

Urban Social Movements and the Struggle for Affordable Housing in the Globalizing City of Tel Aviv-Jaffa

“…With all major banks having their headquarters in Tel Aviv's historical central business district (CBD) or in a newly emerging CBD in the adjacent city of Ramat Gan (Shachar and Felsenstein, 2002), Tel Aviv functions as the financial capital, the command-and-control center of Israel. Due to its secular, cosmopolitan lifestyle and the high concentration of advanced producer services, financial institutions, and a growing number of head offices, Tel Aviv is framed as a 'world city in evolution' (Kipnis, 2004), as a 'globalizing city' (Marom, 2011), or as a 'local globality' serving as "a gateway to globalization" (Alfasi and Fenster, 2009, page 544). In more recent years, global city formation has become an official political goal, seen most clearly in the municipal "TLV Global City" initiative seeking to deepen the city's status as a global financial center by attracting domestic and foreign investments, large-scale real-estate capital, high-income knowledge workers, and international tourists.…”

“…(1) As a result, Tel Aviv-Jaffa ranks among the most affluent local governments in Israel and has gained, in contrast to the capital, Jerusalem, a high degree of relative autonomy in relation to the national state (Alfasi and Fenster, 2005). This autonomy is based on cityowned properties and a high share (25%) of municipally owned land (Margalit, 2009; 2013, page 379), an efficient and skilled local administration, limited serious governmental interventions in urban affairs, and, most importantly, independent financial resources-Tel Aviv is one of a few wealthy cities that are not financially supported by the Ministry of the Interior (Alfasi and Fenster, 2009). Based on these material conditions, municipal political elites "maintained an inclusive self-governing attitude, attempting to run the city's municipal and financial affairs independent of the central government" (Alfasi and Fenster, 2005, page 352), and have constructed an image of Tel Aviv as separate from the national state apparatus.…”

“…Building on this conceptual framework, this paper analyzes whether the globalizing city of Tel Aviv (Alfasi and Fenster, 2009), whose generalized unaffordability has spawned the largest socioeconomic protest movement in Israeli history, directed against decades of neoliberalization (Marom, 2013), has become a laboratory for post-neoliberal experiments in the field of housing regulation. To focus on housing regulation seems promising as it is fair to assume that a completely neoliberalized housing market is, like its liberal laissezfaire predecessor in the 19th century (Harloe, 1995), faced with immanent contradictions that make long-term, purely neoliberal regulations problematic (Rolnik, 2013) for at least two reasons.…”