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The role of capital cities
... The existence of a capital city is seen as the main city of a country and needs special treatment when compared to other cities. This was revealed in (Gottmann, 1997): "The capital is by definition the place where major decisions are taken which relate the political entity governed and its inhabitants, resources and institutions to the world beyond its boundaries. The capital is a crossroads where sets of internal and external relationships and networks interlock and interact". ...
... The capital city also tends to have a larger location, both region and population compared to other cities in the country (Quistorff, 2015). This is reasonable considering the enormous influence that the capital city has on determining the present and future of a country (Gottmann, 1997). For example, in the Middle Ages, the existence of capitals in continental European countries tended to be a tool for tyrannical rules to regulate and supervise other regions (Herbst, 2014). ...
... The economic geography literature, for example, conceptualizes capital cities as "information cities" (Castells, 1989), "national information brokers" (Abbott, 1999(Abbott, , 2005 or "transactional cities" (Gottmann, 1977) where complex relationships between government, private sector and third sector actors form a distinctive economic system which is spatially manifested through their interactions, which in turn produce information and knowledge that are important to their nation (Abbott, 1999;Feldman, 2001;Gerhard, 2007;Markusen, Hall, Campbell, & Deitrick, 1991). In this sense, we can consider capital cities as RISs. ...
... In the following we define a SCC as the capital city of a nation, where there is at least one city within the respective nation or state which is economically more important to the country than the capital city is. SCCs are usually found in federal states because the locational choice of capital cities was often a compromise, to balance power relationships but also to separate economic and political power or to serve as independent, alternative sites to the traditional commercial centers (Gottmann, 1977;Nagel, 2013;Slack & Chattopadhyay, 2009). For these reasons SCCs are not infant capitals. ...
We propose a tentative theory linking economic and innovation dynamics with the ways capital cities try to develop and position themselves through the formulation of locational policies. Global and world city theories challenge the traditional role and centrality of capital cities. Capital cities that are not the economic centers of their nations - so-called secondary capital cities - tend to be overlooked in the fields of economic geography and political science. Consequently, there is a lack of research and resulting theory analyzing their political economy. We put forward an interdisciplinary perspective that is informed by theories of economic geography and political science, as processes of economic development and political positioning are interrelated and need to be examined together. By linking three different theoretical strands - the regional innovation system approach, the concept of locational policies, and the policy regime perspective - this paper proposes a framework to study the economic and political dynamics in secondary capital cities. Examples of secondary capital cities such as Bern, Canberra, Ottawa, The Hague and Washington D.C. illustrate our theoretical arguments throughout the paper.
... Cornish [7] analyzed the large capitals (metropolises) from the historical geography perspective, and emphasized the influence of various political, economic, social and other factors over time and throughout the history on the formation and changes of the roles and functions of these metropolises. In his research, Gottmann examined the role and function of metropolises playing the role of a capital, and analyzed the factors influencing the assumption of such a role [20]. Peter Hall [23] analyzed the changes in the role and function of capitals (cities with capital role) and considered a six-level ranking for these cities based on the role. ...
... In terms of demographic size, most of the capital cities in our sample were larger than the port cities (cf. Figure 1, 4bi) Contradictory cases (4bii) were retained in the sample although such cities may not be prime locations in port hinterlands 4 . As emphasized by Gottmann (1977Gottmann ( , 1983, the functions of a capital city secure "strong and lasting centrality" and foster the development of ancillary activities and accessibility. This is particularly true under autocratic political regimes, but less so in federal states and ones where a division of power has been made to promote regional balance or for other reasons. ...
This research focuses on the accessibility of inland cities to maritime trade. A quantitative analysis of 64 inland capital cities situated in coastal countries is proposed based on indicators that relate to ports, transport, trade, and urban factors. The identified trends suggest that there is a trade-off between remoteness from the sea and trade openness, which leads us to postulate the existence of three typologies of inland cities: major logistics hubs, constrained metropolises, and underdeveloped corridors. We conduct a more qualitative review of intermodalism and port choice issues with reference to a selection of six selected case studies. The observed spatial configurations have implications for logistics and governance.
... A sociological view of cities, as not merely spatial containers for human activities but themselves spaces produced by social relations, the social practices, lived experiences, and imaginings of people and groups [66,67], offers a qualitative account for why and how planned capitals grow. A capital city differentiates itself from other cities by occupying the apex of social relations that constitute a nation-state, its chief function being to allow the political elite territorial control by concentrating and allocating resources for the effort [68,69]. Capital cities thus emerge as part of the nation and state building process [70]. ...
Indonesia's new planned capital in East Kalimantan is being touted as a "smart, green, beautiful and sustainable city" but has stoked fears of massive environmental damage to the island of Borneo, one of the world's most important biodiversity hotspots and carbon sinks. Precedents of other planned capitals can contribute to an understanding of the potential long-term impacts of Indonesia's new capital. We used historical nighttime lights to quantitatively assess the spatial growth footprint of 12 previous planned capitals, and conducted land-use analyses to identify the potential environmental impacts on Borneo's natural environment. Our assessment suggests that it is likely that the direct footprint of the new capital could grow rapidly, expanding over 10 km from its core in less than two decades and over 30 km before mid-century. We identified sensitive ecosystems which may be affected by the new capital's direct and indirect footprint, such as forest reserves, mangrove and peat. Deforestation emissions from the new capital's direct (30 km) and indirect (200 km) footprint could be approximately 50 MtCO 2e and 2326 MtCO 2e respectively, equivalent to 2.7% and 126% of Indonesia's 2014 greenhouse gas emissions. We discuss how planned capitals can spatially restructure the socio-political geographies of cities and nation-states by interacting with meanings, symbolisms and power relations, which may aggravate environmental impacts but also be seized upon as a catalyst for improving environmental performance in Borneo and Indonesia. Finally, we recommend the use of best practices in impact assessment and sustainability as a necessary first step towards protecting Borneo.
... 8-12, 28-35, 45-50, 120-124]. It was also touched upon abroad [14,15,18,19]. However, a quick search did not reveal systematic studies. ...
The aim of the article is to verify the opinions of classic Russian geographers on the geographical positions of capital cities and the commonality of their historical destiny. The remoteness of 178 official and 45 alternative capitals from the outer contours of their countries has been measured. Their relation to the “reduced radius” (RR) of national territories has been calculated. The distributions of indicators and their dependence on the closest border, either terrestrial or maritime, have been analyzed. The results are shown on maps. The remoteness proved quite small on average (70 km, or 20% of the RR), especially the remoteness of informal capitals gravitating to the sea (20 km, or 6% of the RR). Particular cases of the closeness of capitals to borders are considered. A number of examples demonstrate that the areas of the historical migration of capitals are more often than not triangular in form and also small compared to modern countries. The migration of Russian capital cities is highlighted in the greatest detail. The thesis about the commonality of the destinies of capitals and countries with their borders, just like the thesis about the gravitation of capital cities to the interiors of countries, is only partially true. They are interrelated but not identical. At the same time, capital city and border are key, mutually complementary, and even somewhat similar spatial attributes of the state.
... I Urban centres determine the orientation of social and economic infrastructure, generally with disproportionate overall and per capita expenditure relative to rural areas, except where the latter perform an essential colonial function, e.g a transport conduit for resources from their point of extraction to the metropole 2 The major centres, and especially Windhoek, represent large population concentrations, the focus of industry and commerce unless a particular resource location determines otherwise The juxtaposed presence of relatively well-educated bourgeoisies and large proletariats with high unemployment ensure that societal tensions and class conflict generally manifest themselves here 3 Just as colonial capital cities symbolised European hegemony, they were the centres in which the seeds of national liberation struggles were sown and homes of their intellectual! ideological leaderships 3 Hence research should in future make this relationship more explicit, e.g. the impact of the 1959 massacre in Windhoek's Old Location and the shanty-town's subsequent demolition on black politicisation and consequently the liberation struggle Copyright (c) 2006 ProQuest Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) Liverpool University Press 4 Exclusion of the geographically peripheral bantustans ( Figure I) from virtually all industrial and urban development. notwithstanding their high population densities, is no accident but a reflection of the political economy As will be discussed below, this also has import for postindependence planning 5 After independence elsewhere, rural-to-urban migration has accelerated dramatically, creating vast absorption and employment problems with important political ramifications (see below) The proportion of national populations classified as urban has risen accordingly, and is already well over 25 per cent in Namibia 6 The capital city forms a 'transactional crossroads' between internal and external relations." ...
Planning for post-independence exchange in Namibia has thus far lacked a specifically urban element. Against the background of colonial urbanization preliminary results of the 1981 population census are outlined to provide baseline for forward planning in accordance with the major liberation movement's commitment to social transformation. Stressing the need for integrated development planning at all scales, sets out nine crucial urban research and planning priorities ranging from squatting to social organization of the poor and the entire town planning system. Appropriate and flexible policy standards are emphasized as is the need to see urban centres as integral parts of the wider political economy.-Author
... It is striking that most approaches evaluating new capital city choices are not informed by any external perspectives or by the existing body of literature on capital city relocations and capital planning. 46 The participants are also most oft en unaware of the existing research methodologies currently employed by the students of capital city shift s, such as dynamic systems approach, growth pole theory, world-systems analysis, urban ecology, centrography, multidisciplinary network theories, and spatial economics focusing on the social and economic costs of urban primacy; thus, discussions of historical precedents in world history are oft en lopsided and impressionistic rather than analytic. 47 The interpretations of these experiences and the perceptions of their successes or failures oft en depend on the particular preferences and political agendas of the participants rather than on systematic analysis. ...
Over the last twenty years Russia has experienced significant fluctuations in sentiments regarding the prospects and urgency of relocating the Russian capital city. In this article, Vadim Rossman examines the public debates on this topic, which have involved important Russian politicians, intellectuals, and members of various expert communities. In these debates, one can recognize several distinct new visions of society that emerged in the post-Soviet period. This article provides an overview and a critique of these debates and suggests that they should be viewed in the context of nation building, the slow emergence of the nation that was historically suppressed under the weight of the imperial ambitions of Russian statehood. In the background of these debates, the concept of self-identity looms large. National capitals can serve as catalysts for nation building and an instrument of the nation as it constitutes and constructs itself.
... Eine weitere Verlagerung einer Küstenhauptstadt ins Landesinnere fand in Cote d'Ivoire statt, wo Yamoussoukro, Heimat des Staatspräsidenten, seit 1984 Abidjan als Sitz der Zentralregierung ablöste (vgl. hierzu GOTTMANN 1983, MANSHARD 1986, NILSSON 1973, STANG 1983. Die letztgenannten Neugründungen stehen im Zusammenhang der Nationenbildung in jungen Staaten, die losgelöst von kolonialer Vergangenheit und Außenorientierung eine neue Identität aufzubauen versuchen. ...
Prospects and realisation of a planned capital
city: the case of Islamabad in Pakistan
The phenomenon of founding new capital cities
characterizes a number of decolonized countries in Asia,
Africa and Latin America. This paper discusses the case of
Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, which was founded
30 years ago. The expectations laid down in the complex
dynapolis concept by the Greek town planner C. D. Doxiadis
are compared with the present-day appearance and problems
of Islamabad. The modernistic and westernized
architectural euphoria of the 1960s has found its expressions
in the „city of Islam" where hardly any elements of Islamic
building traditions have been incorporated. The development
of Islamabad is traced from the planning stages when
the capital functions where transferred from the interim
capital and industrial centre Karachi to Islamabad, the city
of bureaucrats and diplomats. In the confrontation of plan
with reality the emphasis is placed on three aspects of urban
dwelling, i.e., habitation, transportation, and supply situation.
The existence of squatter settlements and mudhouse
quarters prove the misconception of the town planners and
the Capital Development Authority regarding the planning
and provision of adequate accomodation to all social groups
working and living in the capital. The inadequate traffic
concept has omitted a public transport system that would
allow commuting between different sectors of the capital.
The inflexible hierarchical structure of shopping areas
assigned to different residential quarters failed to serve the
needs of the majority of the urban population. Periodic
markets have been filling the supply gap and serve as
dynamic business centres. Thirty years after its inception
the appearance of Islamabad has deviated in many respects
from the town planning concept and reflects overall socioeconomic
developments within Pakistan.
Why do some countries make the costly decision to relocate their capital city? Existing research offers four general explanations for this momentous action: administrative functionality, economic development, environmental degradation, and national integration. We offer a less sanguine, political explanation: capital relocations offer autocratic leaders a way to mitigate different security threats, including coups, popular protests, and foreign interventions. Using original data on capital relocations in 202 polities after 1789, we test several implications of our argument, at different levels of analysis. First, we show that autocracies are much more likely to relocate their capitals than democracies. Second, using different indicators of internal and external threats, we find that autocracies more likely relocate their capitals when breakdown is looming. Third, running subnational analyses, we find evidence that capitals are relocated to smaller cities and areas less susceptible to urban development.
Throughout history, water availability has been an essential factor in shaping the development, culture, transportation, economic activities, and access to food in cities. The socioeconomic and cultural development of a city or country with a coast depends on the active use of the coast and the impact of the coast on urban life. In this context, for the development of coastal cities, it is necessary to determine coastal city criteria and specify their strategies in line with these criteria in order to increase coastal qualities. This research determined Bursa, located northwest of Turkey, as the study area. However, factors such as the absence of a coastal plan for the city and the inability of the coast to integrate into urban life have weakened the coastal city’s qualities of it. For this reason, this study aims to define Bursa’s coastal city criteria and determine strategies to increase the coastal city quality. The coastal city criteria developed depending on the examples of coastal cities in the world were evaluated by surveying local people and experts. The results of these surveys were digitized according to their priorities using Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP), one of the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. The results of this study determined the highest priority criteria among the three main and nine sub-coastal city criteria in evaluating the coastal city in Bursa. This study proposes a numerical method that develops effective and sustainable coastal design and planning strategies for Turkey and underdeveloped countries.
El enfrentamiento por la capitalidad entre La Paz y Sucre, aunque poco conocido internacionalmente, estuvo a punto de impedir la aprobación de la Constitución de 2009. En este artículo se realiza una revisión teórica de los estudios geográficos y politológicos sobre las capitales de los Estados, con un apartado propio para la tipología elaborada a partir de la teoría de los sistemas-mundo. Siguiendo estos trabajos, se analiza el conflicto boliviano a través de un repaso de su historia, prestando una atención especial al período de la Asamblea Constituyente entre 2006 y 2009, y a continuación se presentan los argumentos que sustentan las posiciones de ambas ciudades candidatas. En base a la literatura académica, el caso de Bolivia podría considerarse el de una capital compartida asimétrica, con preminencia de La Paz. No obstante, a falta de una capital indiscutible, se trata de una cuestión que puede reabrirse en cualquier momento. Partiendo de la experiencia boliviana, también se extraen conclusiones que pueden ser útiles para otros países que experimenten una situación similar.
This chapter explains the concept of national integration and delves into how national integration measures that suit peculiar cases of countries have been adopted by them. The chapter did not shy away from ethnic and religious violence because these and violence in any form are indications that the integration of any state is threatened. Therefore, the chapter first delves into ethnicity and religion as two major root causes of violence in different countries.
This paper examines the importance of legacy as a hidden agenda behind the ambitions and haste attitude of Indonesian state leaders in relocating the capital. It also elucidates the institutional mechanisms employed to achieve this lofty goal. In 2019, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) issued a controversial declaration on the relocation of Indonesia’s capital city from Jakarta to Kalimantan Island. Despite the protracted COVID-19 pandemic and the prevailing global economic and geopolitical uncertainties, he marshalled all necessary means and resources under his command to ensure the capital megaproject could commence and the inauguration could be held before his presidential tenure ends in 2024. As formal and technical arguments for Indonesia's capital relocation have been criticised for inconsistencies, a comprehensive understanding of the real phenomenon necessitates an exploration of the hidden agendas behind this unpopular move. The argument posits that the new capital city serves as a megaproject legacy, signified by the construction of monumental and iconic buildings and structures that will reflect the enduring power and memories of the politicians. Furthermore, the institutional mechanisms of the megaproject legacy tend to be pragmatic, whereby quick, concrete and symbolic actions become the top priority at the expense of the quality of the planning process and outcome.
Capital cities form the focus of a sub-field in urban studies. Much of the literature concerning their planning concentrates on their histories, and on the core precincts in which these cities of power often focus their governmental functions. Lacunae in the capital city literature include little attention to twenty-first century capital city settings in large, complex and expanding city-regions; to recent developments in broader urban literatures/city studies; and to contemporary directions of their planning and emergent futures. This article seeks to contribute to filling these gaps through a comparative study of five national capital city-regions on four continents: those of Delhi, Beijing, Paris, Pretoria and Brasília. The methods applied rest on secondary sources as well as some primary research in each of these city-regions. The article proceeds through a substantial review of literatures on capital cities and relevant urban studies, and sets out a general comparison of the five city-regions historically and in terms of their current features. We then proceed to an examination of present challenges and planning approaches in each city-region in turn. A discursive conclusion explores possibilities for the future and argues that by ‘catching up’ conceptually to contemporary trends, including debates around ‘extended urbanisation’, capital city studies, as a sub-field of urban scholarship, could play a useful role in promoting critique of policy and planning responses.
Within the context of the growth poles theory, the areas that lack critical sizes, instead of polycentric structures, develop restricted urban “dipoles” and “tripoles” that are often not studied in the literature within a well-defined context. This paper aims to conceptualize these peculiar urban structures more deeply. It configures a methodological framework quantitatively defining dipoles and polycentric structures through edge distribution partitioning. The analysis is applied to Greek commuting data at the intercity and interregional geographical scale, defining dipoles within a more realistic empirical context comparatively to the percentile and boxplot outlier detection. Overall, the proposed method has a scale-free property due to its structural than numeric configuration and contributes to a more realistic detection of city dipoles, providing insights into the effect of scale and polycentrism in urban structures.
این پژوهش با هدف توصیف و تشریح چگونگی و چرایی کاربرد روش تبارشناسی برای تحلیل تحولات نقش شهرها در طول زمان تدوین شده است. برای تحلیل تحولات نقش شهرها رویکردهای متعددی نظریهپردازان اقتصادی و جغرافیای شهری ارائه کردهاند. شهر و نقش آن از منظر تبارشناسی فوکو تحت تأثیر قدرت و روابط قدرت در فضاست. تحلیل چگونگی ایجاد نقشهای مسلط کنونی شهر به کمک ابزار و محصولات دانش وابسته به قدرت امکانپذیر میشود. تبارشناسی نقش شهر مشهد با هدف بررسی نقشهای مسلط کنونی، گفتمان پدیدآورندة این نقشها و قدرت و ظرفیت نهفته در شهر برای تنوعبخشی به نقشهای جدید تدوین شده است. نتایج تحقیق نشان میدهد نقش مسلط شهری مشهد در مقاطع تاریخی مختلف و در میانه گسستهای تاریخی در نتیجة روابط فضایی بین عناصر کلان و خُرد قدرت و دانش در فضای شهری بهوجود آمده است. شبکة درهمتنیدة دانش- قدرت در شهر متأثر از فلسفههای سیاسی حاکم در طول دورههای تاریخی پهنههای گفتمانی متفاوتی را با اثرهای متنوع در طول زمان خلق کرده است و روند توسعة شهری و تحولات کالبدی-انسانی آن را تحت تأثیر قرار داده است. این شهر به دلیل موقعیت ویژة خود در ساختار نظام شهری ایران و پذیرش نقش سیاسی- مدیریتی دارای کارکردهای مرتبط با این نقش است و همچنین از نقش و کارکرد منحصربهفرد زیارتی و گردشگری برخوردار بوده که این نقش چشمانداز توسعة شهر مشهد از گذشته(زمان پیدایش نقش) تا کنون را رقم زده است.
The article continues a new page in political geography related to the use of performative rules in the interpretation of spatial phenomena. The capital, in our case Jerusalem, as the brightest embodiment of spatial relations in the state, from the standpoint of performativity will be presented as a special symbolic system that contributes to the capital growth of the capital, which will allow deconstructing this phenomenon in a new and original way.
The case of Jerusalem appears through the prism of the manifestation of the capital of the capital. A performative approach to the capital city opens up new possibilities for interpreting the essential features of the symbolic and real capital.
A széles körű konszenzus által övezett nemzeti és állami jelképek, mindenekelőtt a himnusz, a
zászló (nemzeti színek), valamint a címer, leginkább az állami szuverenitás és a nemzeti identitás
kifejezésére és megjelenítésére alkalmasak. A nemzeti és állami jelképek külső és belső funkcióval
egyaránt rendelkeznek. A szimbólumok külső funkciója az adott politikai közösség
szuverenitásának és önazonosságának reprezentálása, belső funkciója pedig az adott államhoz
kötődő személyek integrálása, összetartozásuk megjelenítése. Az állami és nemzeti szimbolika
megalkotása és a jelképek használatának szabályozása jellemzően az alkotmányjog területéhez
tartozik. A klasszikus és hivatalos jelképek mellett az állami és nemzeti léthez ugyanakkor további,
a jogalkotó által is elismert szimbolikus elemek is kapcsolódhatnak.
This chapter focuses on recent changes in the structure and practices of geographies of global economic governance that have become more influential in response to the financial crisis of 2008. At their core is a ‘smart specialization strategy’ aimed at revitalizing core economies and flexibilizing regional development pathways through targeted research and innovation investments. While ostensibly directed at regionally and locality sensitive development strategies, the paper argues that these smart specialization initiatives intersect in important ways with the growing economic and political dominance of large cities, especially capital cities. Such primate city concentration of wealth, political influence, and social capital poses real political risks in shaping future political and economic agendas, and efforts to manage regional inequalities.
Capital cities are government cities that tend to lack a competitive political economy. Especially secondary capital cities—defined as capitals that are not the primary economic centers of their nation-states—are pressured to increase their economic competitiveness in today’s globalized interurban competition by formulating locational policies. This article compares the locational policies agendas of Bern, Ottawa, The Hague, and Washington, D.C. The comparison reveals that (1) secondary capital cities tend to formulate development-oriented locational policies agendas, (2) local tax autonomy best explains the variance in locational policies agendas, and (3) secondary capital cities possess urban governance arrangements where public actors dominate and where developers are the only relevant private actors. The challenge for secondary capital cities is to formulate locational policies that enable them to position themselves as government cities, as well as business cities, while not solely relying on the development of their physical infrastructure
The political and symbolic centrality of capital cities has been challenged by increasing economic globalization. This is especially true of secondary capital cities; capital cities which, while being the seat of national political power, are not the primary economic city of their nation state. David Kaufmann examines the unique challenges that these cities face entering globalized, inter-urban competition while not possessing a competitive political economy.
Varieties of Capital Cities offers empirically rich case studies of four secondary capital cities: Bern, Ottawa, The Hague, and Washington, DC. Analysed with an innovative research framework, this book shows through its clearly structured analysis, that while the pressures facing these cities are the same, the mechanisms they employ to cope with them are very different. They have formulated a wide variety of policies to supplement their capital function with economically promising profiles, even though they cannot escape their destinies as government cities.
This book is an impressive contribution to an area of study largely neglected by urban studies, political science, and economic geography. With vital lessons for urban policy makers, the interested practitioner will find a pool of inspiration for their urban strategies. Students and scholars of these subjects will find this book interesting, and will also find it invaluable as a lesson for how to develop and execute comparative case studies.
In 1975, the Nigerian authorities decided to construct a new postcolonial capital called Abuja, and together with several internationally renowned architects these military leaders collaborated to build a city for three million inhabitants. Founded five years after the Civil War with Biafra, which caused around 1.7 million deaths, the city was envisaged as a place where justice would reign and where people from different social, religious, ethnic, and political backgrounds would come together in a peaceful manner and work together to develop their country and its economy. These were all laudable goals, but they ironically mobilized certain forces from around the country in opposition against the Federal Government of Nigeria. The international and modernist style architecture and the fact that the government spent tens of billions of dollars constructing this idealized capital ended up causing more strife and conflict. For groups like Boko Haram, a Nigerian Al-Qaida affiliate organization, and other smaller ethnic groups seeking to have a say in how the country’s oil wealth is spent, Abuja symbolized everything in Nigeria they sought to change. By examining the creation of the modernist national public spaces of Abuja within a broader historical and global context, this book looks at how the successes and the failures of these spaces have affected the citizens of the country and have, in fact, radicalized individuals with these spaces being scene of some of the most important political events and terrorist targets, including bombings and protest rallies. Although focusing on Nigeria’s capital, the study has a wider global implication in that it draws attention to how postcolonial countries that were formed at the turn of the twentieth century are continuously fragmenting and remade by the emergence of new nation states like South Sudan.
Capital cities that are not the dominant economic centres of their nations – so-called ‘secondary capital cities’ (SCCs) – tend to be overlooked in the fields of economic geography and political science. Yet, capital cities play an important role in shaping the political, economic, social and cultural identity of a nation. As the seat of power and decision-making, capital cities represent a nationʼs identity not only through their symbolic architecture but also through their economies and through the ways in which they position themselves in national urban networks.
The Political Economy of Capital Cities aims to address this gap by presenting the dynamics that influence policy and economic development in four in-depth case studies examining the SCCs of Bern, Ottawa, The Hague and Washington, D.C. In contrast to traditional accounts of capital cities, this book conceptualizes the modern national capital as an innovation-driven economy influenced by national, local and regional actors. Nationally, overarching trends in the direction of outsourcing and tertiarization of the public sector influence the fate of capital cities. Regional policy makers in all four of the highlighted cities leverage the presence of national government agencies and stimulate the economy by way of various locational policy strategies.
While accounting for their secondary status, this book illustrates how capital city actors such as firms, national, regional, and local governments, policymakers and planning practitioners are keenly aware of the unique status of their city. The conclusion provides practical recommendations for policymakers in secondary capital cities and highlights ways in which they can help to promote economic development.
This research “Indicators of Tourism City Reputation in Thailand” aims to explore the criteria of tourism city reputation’s indicators through perception of each stakeholder group in Thailand. This also includes an exploratory study of corporate reputation’s indicators to create the new indicators to specifically measure city reputation in tourism. The research methodology is consisted of both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Qualitatively, each group of stakeholders have been interviewed such as residents, visitors, private sectors, public sectors, and investors. This was conducted in a total of 18 interviewees in three different types of tourism destination including Bangkok as recreational and entertainment tourism city, Kanchanaburi province as natural tourism city, and Ayudhya province as historical and cultural tourism city. Quantitatively, primary data were collected by survey questionnaire from 979 respondents and was statistically analysed by Exploratory Factor Analysis to categorize factors and variables for measuring tourism city reputation. Lastly, content validation by considering through 5 expertise in academic and practitioners with IOC tool.
Results of this exploratory research with Cronbach’s alpha (α) exceeding .973 revealed that the indicators for tourism city reputation in Thailand were consisted of 93 variable items and can be categorized into 9 factors namely emotional appeals, tourism governance, infrastructure, society, way of life, localness, products and services, communications, and policy.
The reflections, the metaphors and the rich body of writings of Jean Gottmann's career were remarkable in their connectivity and prescience. His contributions have laid important conceptual groundwork for approaching the needed new policy challenges confronting a global knowledge economy. The emphasis in this paper is heavily on the inspiration and stimulus that Jean Gottmann has provided to us especially from his geographic and historical influences. We begin this overall task addressing some of Jean Gottmann's urban perspectives that continue to shape our understanding of cities. Next is an outline of the principal concepts that resonate today for planners. Finally, we consider the timelessness of some of Jean Gottmann's work, and its application to dimensions of contemporary life that he never saw.
Washington DC is rarely mentioned in the scientific literature on world cities. However, its influence on the world economy is obvious (World Bank, IMF, Federal Reserve). As a new immigration center, Washington has grown rapidly into an international city. It is suggested that the concept of global city must be re-examined to propose a more flexible definition.
Outside of central Tokyo, too little has been written about Japanese municipalities regardless of their economic performance or problems. One area that currently deserves greater attention is the recently amalgamated City of Saitama, the area that experienced the largest employment increase of any municipality in Japan (42,783) during Japan’s lost decade. What factors allowed it to counteract prevailing trends? This article examined this question and found that Saitama’s 1990s employment growth was spurred by: (1) its spatial nestedness within the National Capital Region (NCR); (2) its status in Japan’s and its prefecture’s urban hierarchy; (3) its embeddedness in the Japanese Developmental State; and (4) the reflexive policymaking of the cities of Urawa, Omiya, and Yono, and Saitama Prefecture. The final two factors were part of a shared intergovernmental vision to transform the area into a Business Core City in the NCR and into the new locus of central government activities in the North Kanto-Koshin’etsu Area. The implementation of this led to the development of the Saitama Shin Toshin Project, the transferring of more than 6000 national bureau workers to the site, the merger of the three cities to create Saitama City, and private employment growth.
Overall, the findings of this article were consistent with Hill and Fujita’s [Hill, R. C. and Fujita, K (2003) The nested city: introduction. Urban Studies 40 (2), 207–217.] Nested Cities thesis, which argued that urban growth trajectories in Japan, similar to that in other parts of the world, remain deeply nested within multi-layered spatial and institutional contexts. The article also provides a window into how local, in addition to national bureaucracies and politicians have shaped urban change in Japan.
This paper examines the concept of capital city tourism with reference to Wellington, the world's southernmost capital. Drawing on visitor survey data, interviews with providers, the analysis of marketing strategies and secondary statistics, the paper seeks to distinguish the ‘capital’ dimension from other aspects of tourism in the city and to consider this from the perspective of the visitors, providers and the destination marketing organization. Reflecting a range of functions-political, economic and symbolic-the ‘capital’ dimensions are shown to be multiple and often indirect. The capital city effect on the overall growth and nature of tourism in Wellington should not be overstated but scope exists to develop this unique selling point further.
This paper examines the selection of the capital city of the Eastern Cape Province in 1994, an important concern in post-apartheid political geography. Initially there were four contenders, Bisho-King William's Town, Umtata, Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth. Grahamstown withdrew from the competition in the early stages of negotiations preferring to remain the judicial capital of the Province. Bisho-King William's Town won the competition.
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