The effect of urban development on local thermal climate is widely documented in scientific literature. Observations of urban–rural air temperature differences—or urban heat islands (UHIs)—have been reported for cities and regions worldwide, often with local field sites that are extremely diverse in their physical and climatological characteristics. These sites are usually described only as “urban” or “rural,” leaving much uncertainty about the actual exposure and land cover of the sites. To address the inadequacies of urban–rural description, the “local climate zone” (LCZ) classification system has been developed. The LCZ system comprises 17 zone types at the local scale (102 to 104 m). Each type is unique in its combination of surface structure, cover, and human activity. Classification of sites into appropriate LCZs requires basic metadata and surface characterization. The zone definitions provide a standard framework for reporting and comparing field sites and their temperature observations. The LCZ s...

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Local Climate Zones for Urban Temperature Studies

Attention to global and world cities has directed the field of urban studies to the significance of international and transnational processes in shaping city economies. This article evaluates these approaches, from a position off their maps. I argue that the circulation of these approaches in academic and policy realms adversely impacts on cities which do not fall into these categories by setting up the idea of the global city as a ‘regulating fiction’, a standard towards which they aspire. It establishes a small sector of the global economy as most desirable in planning the future of cities. By contrast, mega–cities function as the dramatic ‘other’ of world and global cities, and highlight the developmentalist discourse through which most cities in poor countries are assessed as fundamentally lacking in qualities of city–ness. I argue that the long–standing categories of western/third–world cities have been translated into the apparently transnational accounts of global and world cities. Western cities continue to be the primary site of production of apparently unlocated urban theory; so–called third–world cities (and other cities off the map of the world cities cartography) are interpreted through a developmentalist lens and, where they are referred to at all, are framed in terms of ‘difference’ or irrelevance. This article draws attention to the emergence of an alternative set of theoretical approaches, which are more inclusive in their geographical reach and which are concerned with the diverse dynamics of ordinary cities. These approaches have not yet realized that they have the potential to broaden the base for theorizing about cities and, with this in mind, the article explores the potential for a more cosmopolitan urban theory. The policy stakes in this are high, and the article notes that there are important political reasons to promote the analysis of ordinary cities in the face of the persistence of ambitions in many cities to become ‘world cities‘.

L’attention accordee aux villes planetaires et mondiales a oriente le champ des etudes urbaines vers l’importance des processus internationaux et transnationaux dans la configuration economique des villes. Partant d’un point situe hors de leur cartographie, l’article evalue ces approches. La circulation de celles–ci dans les spheres politiques et intellectuelles a une incidence nefaste sur les villes qui n’appartiennent pas a ces categories, car elle instaure l’idee d’une ville planetaire en tant que ‘fiction regulatrice’, norme a laquelle aspirent les villes. Un secteur restreint de l’economie mondiale est ainsi etabli comme le plus recherche dans la planification urbaine. Par contraste, les megacities fonctionnent comme l’impressionnant ‘autre’ des villes mondiales et planetaires, valorisant le discours developpementaliste selon lequel l’evaluation des villes des pays pauvres indique le plus souvent des lacunes fondamentales dans les qualites propres a une ville. Les anciennes categories de villes (Occident/tiers–monde) ont ete converties en justifications apparemment transnationales des villes planetaires et mondiales. Les villes occidentales restent le site de production principal d’une theorie urbaine manifestement non–localisee; les villes dites du tiers monde (et autres villes ignorees de la cartographie des villes mondiales) sont interpretees a travers une optique developpementaliste et, si on en parle, sont depeintes en termes de ‘difference‘ ou d’inadequation. Cet article souligne l’emergence d’un autre ensemble d’approches theoriques, plus inclusives dans leur geographie et soucieuses des diverses dynamiques des villes ordinaires. Sachant que ces demarches ne sont pas encore conscientes de pouvoir etendre la base theorique sur les villes, l’article explore la possibilite d’une theorie urbaine plus cosmopolite. Les enjeux strategiques sont serieux et il existe des raisons politiques importantes d’encourager l’analyse des villes ordinaires face aux ambitions persistantes dans de nombreuses villes de devenir les ‘villes mondiales’.

Global and world cities: a view from off the map

Urban Growth in Developing Countries: A Review of Current Trends and a Caution Regarding Existing Forecasts

Each phase in the long history of the world economy raises specific questions about the particular conditions that make it possible One of the key properties of the current phase is the ascendance of information technologies and the associated increase in the mobility and liquidity of capital There have long been cross-border economic processes—flows of capital, labor, goods, raw materials, tourists But to a large extent these took place within the inter-state system, where the key articulators were national states The international economic system was ensconced largely in this inter-state system This has changed rather dramatically over the last decade as a result of privatization, deregulation, the opening up of national economies to foreign firms, and the growing participation of national economic actors in global markets

The global city: introducing a concept

(2000). World-City Network: A New Metageography? Annals of the Association of American Geographers: Vol. 90, No. 1, pp. 123-134.

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World‐City Network: A New Metageography?

In this volume, the world's urban future is analyzed through a number of critical themes that relate to globalization, such as urban corridors, Islamic cities, new technologies, transport and telecommunications, financial centers, and food issues World cities are discussed not simply for the functions they perform in the global economy, but also to examine the processes by which they came to perform those functions The book builds upon a series of regional research projects focused on mega-cities sponsored by the United Nations University Rich in theoretical and policy perspectives, it is balanced by cross-regional and cultural empirical analyses, data, and illustrations Its conclusions will be helpful to scholars and planners in developed and developing nations

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Globalization and the world of large cities

Part 1 Global-Asia-Pacific functional linkages: global restructuring and emerging corridors in Pacific Asia international transport and communications interactions between Pacific Asia's emerging world cities. Part 2 Changing Asia-Pacific world cities: the Japanese urban system and the growing centrality of Tokyo in the global economy Seoul - a global city in a nation of rapid growth globalization and the urban system in Taiwan globalization and the urban system in China global influences on recent urbanization trends in the Philippines the changing urban system in a fast-growing city and economy - the case of Bangkok and Thailand emerging urban trends and the globalizing economy in Malaysia Jabotabek and globalization. Part 3 Borderless cities: the Singapore-Johore-Riau triangle - an emerging extended metropolitan region the Hong-Kong-Zhujiang delta and the world city system the evolving urban system in North-East Asia.

Fu-chen Lo

Papers

Globalization and the world of large cities

Emerging World Cities in Pacific Asia