- An urban Geography of Gobalisation: new corporate Centralities in the Age of hyper Connectivity    1538 kb by    Rocco, Roberto | r.rocco@bk.tudelft.nl    Short Outline The paper analyses transformations in urban structure and form resulting from the progression of transnational corporations and actions taken by local governments in order to attract and accommodate them in two case studies: Randstad and São Paulo. Abstract This paper seeks at analysing possible impacts of the progression of transnational corporations over urban form and structure in the last two decades in two case-studies: São Paulo and The Randstad-Holland. My hypothesis is that economic globalisation has the potential to influence transformations in urban form and structure. However, the main agent of urban transformation is the State. Even in societies where informal activities have a great impact on urban transformations, or where the market is said to predominate over planning, the State is always responsible for large formal and structural changes of consequence. The agents of economic globalisation more likely to induce urban transformations (always in partnership with the public sector) are transnational corporations: either by controlling public services and existing infrastructures (through privatisation) or by promoting the development of new urban landscapes and infrastructures (through partnerships). Both privatisation and partnerships can only be organised and articulated by the State. Transnational corporations’ headquarters and main offices (TNCs) are regarded here as users and articulators of global flows over a territorial basis. In Post-Fordism, TNCs have encouraged or required the development of new infrastructure and urban landscapes in order to locate high-skilled managerial functions. New requirements related to connectivity, accessibility and image resulted in the emergence of a new urban geography of ‘corporate’ centralities in polycentric structures. These new or improved urban network hubs will be analysed through a model of urban flows, links and nodes. This model may help us explain the spatial distribution and agglomeration of advanced command activities in urban regions and specific areas in cities. The parameters for the analysis are drawn from empirical study of location of related activities in case studies (The Randstad and São Paulo), published literature, as well as interviews with decision-makers from the private and public sectors. I emphasize the analysis of local structural transformation in the form of Large Urban Projects carried out in the 1990’s and first half of the 2000’s by the public sector, in order to attract or facilitate the location of advanced command activities. Keywords advanced producer service location patterns/ urban & regional planning/ services and regional and local development policies/ agglomeration of services/ knowledge based society and new urban environments/ new service centralities Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2006: Cities between Integration and Disintegration   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper