ASSIGNEMENT THEORY DE NEUVILLE GRALDINE

Under which forms and conditions can a local economy emerge and develop his ow n
knowledge economy in order to face the metropolisation process of his city ?
Case of study : El tiradero a cielo abierto , a local project of the city of
Netzahualcyotl, in the metropolitan area of Mexico.

Questions / table of contents

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The globalization of urban/rural area : what is it ? Population growth in the urban age cities an issue for our
futur ?
The process of metropolization - what does it affect ? Who are marginalized ? How can they survive in our
society ?
City center as power of knowledges/money/services which stakeholders are involved or excluded ?
How the process of the metropolization facing the globalization is affecting local economy.
What type of knowledges and skills local economy needs to compete with global competition and production
- what is the new production system, which aims is to link industry, economy, territory in our societies
informal economy ?

The case of study

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Background : Mexico city - metropolitan area - Nezahualcoyotl

The stakeholders : who are them - what do they do - which are their links/impacts with their city
Major issues : how their local economy affect their milieu politically, socialy and environmentally
Possible futur for local economy/marginalized people ?

Abstract
As reported by the World Urbanization Prospects (2014 revision) 54% of the population reside in urban
areas and by 2015, 66% of them will become urban citizen. Cities will become bigger and their
metropolitan areas will englobe not just their center but also the suburban rings. Definitely, new
megaregions will appear. They will have to face several challenge such as generate wealth, improving live
of their citizens, developing road network, attract new talent, provide networks in order to continue to be
creative and productive.
The metropolization process have become sensors and key distributors for the cities who must attract
companies (often multinational) and develope services (transport, qualified equipment). Because cities
tend to capture flows, tangible or intangible assets, gather people or activities in large urban complexes
that will soon become large cities or metropolitan. Moreover, this phenomenon is also selective and
generated strong differences in society as social segregation, polarization, and sometimes gentrification
(New York, Paris, ..). Metropolization acts also on spatial level by reorganizing its space. It challenges the
territorial duality urban/rural and changes the nature of relationships between cities (connectivity more
than proximity). Through these processes, people who live in these densely urbanized areas are most
affected. For them, metropolization is linked with changes. It involves new lifestyles, greater mobility, and
sometimes a new form of habitat and production. Ultimately, metropolization will often change daily
practices and "forced" the marginalized to evolve in order to survive.
So the globalization and the process of metropolization don't benefit to everyone. Only few stakeholders
are included in trade flows city thus the growing numbers of high-level professionals and high profit
making specialized service firms have the effect of raising the degree of spatial and socio-economic
inequality evident in these cities. It's a fact, globalization is expanding global opportunities without

ASSIGNEMENT THEORY DE NEUVILLE GRALDINE

distributing them equitably. So what to do if you dont belong to the high-level but well to the low-level
economy ?
Even if globalization has improved communication, facilitating education, provision of information, health,
improving technology and life in our city, it also has negative consequences in the lives of the poor
people . Further to expanding underdevelopment and isolation of certain areas, because they dont
arouse interest, more disparities between people and segregation those who live in the center and the
suburbs are appearing. The weakness person such as unemployed or with poor academic background
are affected and become victims of our society. As the economic gap between the top and the bottom
are increasing, then people, institutions, sectors, countries, regions will change.. By the way new
changes in political, social and economic relations are taking place in our society.
Following such arguments of Scholte (2001), globalization can be defines as processes of
transformation affecting the entire world that involve the transnationalization of production and finance, the
increasing structural relevance of technology, realignments of power over several levels of formal and
informal systems of governance, and social relations. Then new global network will emerge through local
and global, national and international relations among formal and informal, state or non-state actors (trade
of weapons/drugs/natural resources such as minerals or perharps trade of waste management).
Case of study
The city of Mexico has to face different challenge and disparities like the uncontrolled and quick urban
growth, the increase of his population, the fragmentation of his society, inequalities economics, ..
Nezahualcoyotl is part of the metropolitan area of Mexico city but dont enjoy of his infrastructure,
economic, planning development. The case of El tiradero a cielo abierto is about a garbage dump
who was first a boundary between the city and the metropolitan area of Mexico city but then has become
part of it. Because poverty is one of the biggest issue of Mexico, some people decide to use the garbage
dump in an economic way to survive. They have affected the municipality of Nezahualcoyotl through
various aspects : political (they dont own the area but use it as a local economy), socially (they created a
hierarchy, new jobs) and environmentally (garbage are their main ressource but it affects the municipality
because of the smell, the view, it pollutes the municipality and the neighborhood).
What kind of future can deserve marginalized people into local economy ?

Book

Rogers Richard, 2000, des villes pour une petite plante , Groupe Moniteur, Paris.
Henri Lefebvre, 2008, Space, difference, everyday life , Routledge, New York and London
Ruth Fincher,Jane Margaret Jacobs, Cities of Difference , 1998, the Guilford Press
Sonia Hirt with Diane Zahm, The urban wisdom of Jane Jacobs 2012, Routledge
Pierre-andr Julien, A theory of local entrepreneurship in the Knowledge economy

Article

Saskia Sassen, The global city : introducing a concept , WINTER/SPRING 2005, VOLUME XI, ISSUE 2
Saskia Sassen, The Sociology of Globalization , 2003, Review of International Political Economy
Sandra J MacLean, Globalization and the New Inequalities : Threats and prospects for human security , 2004, CGPE Working
paper
Kris Heggenhougen, Are the marginalized the slag-heap of economc growth and globalization ? Disparity, Health, and Human
rights , Health and Human Rights 1999 Harvard School of Public Health/Franois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health

Internet

GaWC Research Network: Peter J. Taylor - http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/Taylor.html

Les salauds de pauvres - http://www.salaudsdepauvres.be/#day1
Les oublis de la mondialisation - http://blog.ac-rouen.fr/lyc-bloch-notes/2014/01/29/les-oublies-de-la-mondialisation/

ASSIGNEMENT THEORY DE NEUVILLE GRALDINE