New York, Chicago, Los Angeles

America's Global Cities

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by Janet L. L. Abu-Lughod

University of Minnesota Press

Due/Published January 2001, 592 pages, paper

ISBN 0816633363

New in paper (S01)

New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles--for all their differences, they are quintessentially American cities. They are also among the handful of cities in the world that can truly be called "global." Abu-Lughod's book is the first to compare them in this in-depth study that takes into account each city's unique history, following their development from their earliest days to their current status as players on the global stage.

Unlike most other global cities, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles all quickly grew from the nearly blank slate of the American landscape to become important beyond the nation's borders early in their histories. As a result, Abu-Lughod is able to show the effect of globalization on each city's development from its beginnings. While all three are critical to global economics and the spread of American culture to the farthest reaches of an increasingly interlinked world, their influence reflects their individual histories and personalities. In a synthesis of historical and economic information, Abu-Lughod clarifies how each city's global role is--and will be--affected by geography, ethnicity of population, political institutions, and tradition of governance.

New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles are more than global players: they are also home to forty million people. Abu-Lughod closes the book with a set of vignettes that captures the cities' differences as perceived by one who has lived in them.

"Comparative urbanism has few practitioners as distinguished as Janet L. Abu-Lughod. In this monumental study, Professor Abu-Lughod rescues Los Angeles from eccentricity by placing it in comparative context alongside the two most accepted urban paradigms of the United States: New York and Chicago. In doing so, she has added a new city--the City of Angels--to the front ranks of American cities and has significantly enhanced our understanding of New York and Chicago as well."--Kevin Starr, State Librarian of California

"This breathtaking tour through the history of the three largest cities of the United States synthesizes the essentials of their varied history in a readable, lively form. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles is the first book I have seen by a single author who has lived in and become intimately knowledgeable about each of the cities, has plumbed their history, examined statistics, and pulled together a comparison that places the data and accounts in the context of personal experience. Abu-Lughod concludes the book with a set of human vignettes that captures differences and similarities among the cities, in the lived experience of a user and employer of each of the cities."--Peter Marcuse, Columbia University

Review

The “Global City” has received a lot of attention recently as the nerve center for the globalized economy and as a new phenomenon that has resulted from the growing internationalization of capital and labor. Abu-Lughod pauses to ask, "How new a phenomenon is it really?" In this imaginative and impressive work, Abu-Lughod argues that while the pace of the global economy has quickened, it has always been an integral part of Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. Abu-Lughod traces the history and development of these three cities starting with their origins and continuing through their present-day status as major international cities. While the cities share several characteristics of large cities, they have enough differences (geography, original economic functions, transportation, political history, etc.) to serve as instructive and fascinating cases for a comparative history that sheds light on how globalization has shaped the city.

In a review of the book Peter Marcuse, coeditor of Globalizing Cities writes, “This breathtking tour through the history of the three largest cities of the United States synthesizes the essentials of their varied history in a readable, lively form. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles is the first book I have seen by a single author who lived in and become intimately knowledgeable about each of the cities, has plumbed their history, examined statistics, and pulled together a comparison that places the data and accounts in the context of personal experiences.”