Sociology

Regional science

Archaeology

Historical geography

Pure mathematics

Globalization

Mathematics

Social science

Economic growth

Strategic geography

Economy

Philosophy

Political science

Economics

Geography

Narrative

Economic geography

Global city

Context (archaeology)

Urban studies

Linguistics

Economic globalization

Field (mathematics)

Agricultural geography

Human geography

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

In this article we attempt to understand the new world geography through its cities by treating corporate globalization from the perspective of cities insofar as they are central to the global networks that make large-scale economic processes possible. To this end, we draw on a conceptual and empirical extension of world city network research to describe the major globalization phases that have been shaping the twenty-first century. After situating our world city network research in the much broader field of research on globalizing cities, we retell the narrative of the extensive, intensive, and Chinese globalization phases as reflected in the office networks of 175 of the world's largest producer services firms across 707 cities. A purposeful combination of connectivity and multivariate analysis is used to reveal cumulative, interacting, overlapping, and unfolding geographies of global economic patterns. We argue that these three key globalizations are shaping the global context of economic processes in the twenty-first century and describe the urban geography of each of these globalizations to understand their broader meanings within today's global economy.

Three Globalizations Shaping the Twenty-first Century: Understanding the New World Geography through Its Cities