Globalisation: Friend Or Foe

Dramatic Changes have taken place in Sydney’s cultural and economic landscapes during the past two decades. These changing landscapes have been linked in both political discourse and the popular press to Sydney’s emerging role as a ‘global city’. Evidence supporting this theory has come from some academic analyses of globalisation in the 1990s. Global cities are identified by their role as command centers for organising the global economy. Such cities have been characterised by their openness to global flows of commodities, money, ideas and information. They have become destinations for both national and international migration of skilled information workers, but also magnets for new streams of global labor migration. The Asia-Pacific Rim has been one of the primary sources of these new flows of international migration into Sydney (Fagan, 2000, pg. 144). The aim of this essay is to gauge the impact of the said globalisations on the various landscapes of Sydney, as globalisation has effected different areas of Sydney in different ways. The principle areas discussed in this paper are Leichardt, Chinatown, Cabramatta, Darling Harbour, the CBD and Pyrmont. The impacts of cultural globalisations will be discussed first, followed by those of economic globalisations. Economic globalisation will be divided into 2 parts: primary impacts and subsequent impacts.

Migrant communities are an attribute of many large western cities and particularly of global cities. In the case of Leichardt, however, Italian settlement occurred prior to Sydney’s emergence as a Global City. The display of the symbols of Italian settlement in the form of signage, businesses and social organisations is a cultural attribute of Sydney’s global city status (Searle, 1996). The maintenance and marketing of this ‘heritage status’ for urban planners and tourism authorities is a key feature of global cities (Searle, 1996). A primary example of the developers and tourism authorities attempting to capitalise on the heritage value of Leichardt is illustrated in Plate 1. Resident Italian-Australians, and tourists alike, can be seen dining and shopping among the Italian Forum in the foreground and middle distance of the photograph.

The situation of Chinatown is similar to that of Leichardt in terms of its heritage value. Chinatown, like Leichardt, was established prior to Sydney’s global city status. Its heritage is a magnet for Chinese-Australians and tourists alike as seen the central foreground of Plate 2. The Pallou Plaza is lined with specialty Chinese shops, conference centers/social clubs.

Cabramatta is one of the direct results of Sydney’s global city status.