Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to assess the central claims in the global city debate concerning the impact of the new international division of labour on the economic base of cities in the advanced economies. According to the global city theoretical framework, this division of labour manifests itself as a combination of deindustrialization and the clustering of advanced producer services in global cities. This does not in any way imply that the economic base of all cities in the advanced economies becomes roughly identical to that of global cities. Nevertheless, this assumption clearly underlies the standard research practice in the global city debate, in which the impact of the new international division of labour on urban labour markets in general is interpreted on the basis of the global city theoretical framework. Such practice comes down to assuming that the economic base of global cities reveals the future guise of cities lower down the urban hierarchy (e.g. Burgers, 1996; Mollenkopf, 2009; Mollenkopf & Castells, 1992; Vaattovaara & Kortteinen, 2003).

This might be problematic for at least two reasons. In the first place, the global city theoretical framework asserts two other scenarios. That industrial employment declined in all cities in the advanced economies is undisputed. However, when it comes to the essential aspect of global city formation – the clustering of advanced producer services – the global city theoretical framework makes a clear distinction between global or service-oriented cities in general on the one hand, and former industrial strongholds on the other. The framework claims that the growth in employment in the advanced producer services in the former type of city is much stronger than in the latter.