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abstract |
saggio
New York City's Two Global Geoghraphies of Talk
Sassen Saskia
2008
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Two 24-hour geographies. Both are actually rolling, but one is the same actors as they move across the globe, the other is a geography of countries of origin, a roving talk machine that moves across
the globe. They capture globalization in action – talking. |
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Scritto per l'evento NYTE - New York Talk Exchange Two 24-hour geographies.
Both are actually rolling, but one is
the same actors as they move across the globe, the other is a geography
of countries of origin, a roving talk machine that moves across
the globe.
They capture globalization in action – talking.
Global talk happens largely among those at the top of the economy
and at its lower end. This point is one of the striking pieces
of evidence coming out of the data analyzed here. The vast middle
layers of our society are far less global; the middle talks mostly nationally
and locally, albeit in highly variable geographies.
Occuring at the top is increasingly, though not fully, a permanent
twenty-four hours of talking, with rapidly shrinking ‘nights.’
This is the network of the forty or so global cities around the world
where financial instruments are traded, new accounting models devised,
mergers and acquisitions executed, and new ways of extracting
profit invented. Traders today start at 04.00 or go on until
midnight in some parts of the world so as to catch the end or the
beginning of the day on the other side of the globe. The idea of the
24-hour financial center, awake and ready to trade with the whole
world, took much longer to take shape than forecasters expected. In
fact, it is still only a partial reality. But night-time as downtime is
definitely a much shorter part of the 24-hour cycle than it used to
be. And daytime as the time when all systems are going is definitely
a brutally extended part of the cycle.
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