Examining income polarization indices in the context of 'world city thesis': An analysis of large U.S metropolitan areas.

摘要

For more than three decades, the 'global city thesis' or the 'world city thesis' has attracted scholarly contributions from urban planners, geographers, sociologists and urban political economists interested in socioeconomic and spatial polarization in mega cities. Although with limited empirical evidence, these scholars in general are in agreement that globalization is an underlying factor of growing income inequalities and socio-spatial polarization found in these urban areas.;On the other hand, the field of welfare economics has traditionally associated income inequalities with factors that have attracted an avalanche of literature since 1950s. In the face of growing income inequalities which some have argued is partly to blame for the great recession (2007-2009), this study seeks to find out the underlying factors of these inequalities by examining arguments made in the two distinct fields of studies- global city thesis and welfare economics. We specifically want to answer the following research questions: Is the pattern of income inequality in "global cities" (New York, London, Tokyo) replicated in the 50 largest metropolitan areas? If so, what framework of analysis best explains this phenomenon, global city thesis or welfare economics?