Latin American Cities and Globalisation: Change and Permanency in the Context of Development Expectations

Abstract

Some interesting changes have been taking place in the urbanisation processes of Latin American countries in the past few decades, some of which are definitely related to global processes. The empirical evidence of this relation is hard to pin down due to the lack of data sources, but in this paper it is suggested that the growth in volume and diversity of mobility relations between cities can be indicators of an overlapping of urban phenomena and global processes. A diachronic analysis (1970—2008) of Latin American air transport connectivity is used to evaluate the growth and the degree of cohesion of the internal relational systems and changes and continuities in the external relational systems. Even though air transport is an indicator to be complemented with other indicators when analysing global relations, the results indicate a continuation of existing Latin American structures (centralism and polarisation) and the emergence of new forms of dependence (tourism and migration), which should not be overlooked in the study of global relational systems.

Global Cities, Connectivity, and the Location Choice of MNC Regional Headquarters

“…Whereas previous literature has conceptualized city connectivity from several different lenses including the corporate organization perspective that focuses on connectivity provided by the international offices of advanced producer services firms (e.g., Taylor, ; Taylor and Aranya, ; Wagner et al, ), an infrastructure perspective that focuses on, for instance, airports (Bel and Fageda, ; Córdoba Ordóñez and Gago García, ; Derudder et al, ; Mahutga et al, ; Pirie, ), and a knowledge‐centred perspective that focuses on knowledge exchange across locations (Bathelt et al, ; Bell and Zaheer, ; Boschma and Frenken, ; Laud et al, ; Matthiessen et al, ; Miguélez and Moreno, ), our research combines these perspectives. We conceptualize and test a new measure of city connectivity that encompasses the effects of flows of people (i.e., airport passengers), services (i.e., producer services firms), and knowledge (i.e., co‐invention).…”

“…From this perspective, global city connectivity is facilitated by air transport, telecommunication circuits, and non‐voice data transfer systems (Knox and Taylor, ). These enabling communication and transport networks undergird the flows of capital, people, and information which are fundamental to the connectivity of places (Córdoba Ordóñez and Gago García, ; Mahutga et al, ; Pirie, ).…”

Ciudades y conectividad aérea en el sistema mundo: nodos consolidados y centros emergentes

“…Estos efectos asociados al transporte aéreo se han intensificado como consecuencia de la popularización y masificación de este medio, restringido no hace mucho tiempo a las clases sociales más altas. El desarrollo de las compañías chárter, primero, y la generalización de las compañías de bajo coste, después, han permitido una democratización de esta modalidad de traslado gracias a un abaratamiento tarifario que ha favorecido el acceso de amplios sectores de la población a los niveles superiores de la jerarquía espacial que representa el transporte aéreo (Córdoba & Gago, 2010;Taylor & Derudder, 2016).…”

“…El avión, elemento y vehículo de la actual civilización técnica y posindustrial, ha posibilitado la aprehensión y percepción de un espacio diferente al que los medios de transporte superficial, y también las telecomunicaciones, podían ofrecer (Córdoba, Gago, & Serrano, 2007). Aunque su función no deja de ser una faceta de la revolución contemporánea de los sistemas de movilidad y comunicación, ha fortalecido su especificidad en los últimos años, especialmente en el ámbito de las relaciones humanas, al permitir comparecer físicamente en un lugar en tiempos reducidos y a escalas muy diferentes, ampliando la esfera de acción humana y reduciendo la superficie del mundo en términos de frecuencias, tiempos de desplazamiento y cantidad de pasajeros y mercancías (Córdoba & Gago, 2010;Gámir & Ramos, 2002). Como consecuencia, los aeropuertos, especialmente aquellos con una variada e intensa conectividad aérea, se convierten en infraestructuras elementales para las ciudades que los albergan, al facilitar la integración de las mismas en los circuitos de orden global.…”

Airports and cities in the context of globalisation: A multidimensional symbiosis in Adolfo Suárez‐Madrid Barajas Airport

“…The requirement for every city that wants to be characterised as "global" is that it must develop links or connections beyond its immediate hinterland. The role of air transport in these cities qualifies them as global because they are accessible from almost anywhere in the world, and any other point may be accessed from them; physical accessibility encourages their functional centrality (Córdoba & Gago, 2010;Córdoba et al, 2007). Although their international air connectivity reaches very high levels at the intra-regional level (Table 1), in almost all cases analysed, the airport hub (and therefore the city that hosts it) has a high international profile; connections and frequencies are not limited to the nearby hinterlands but acquire a long-range intercontinental character.…”