Human Geo 12.3 Questions Flashcards
What are 3 examples of business services that concentrate in disproportionately large numbers in global cities?
- Financial Institutions: Major banks, insurance companies, & specialized financial institutions where corporations get/store funds for expansion.
- Headquarter of large corporations: Shares are bough and sold on stock exchanges in global cities. Executives of firms meet there, support staff account for flow of money/materials; and work is done in offices.
- Lawyers, accountants, and other professional services: cluster there to provide advice to major corporations/banks. Services concerned with style/fashion locate there to help corporations with changes in taste.
What are some examples of consumer services in global cities and why are they clustered there?
Because global cities are so big, they have consumer services with huge market areas, but beyond that, consumer services sell luxury and highly specialized products to the large number of wealthy people in global cities (esp. Leisure services, like plays, concerts, bars, sports, museums, etc). New York is home to the UN, so it attracts thousands of diplomats/bureaucrats/employees with UN business. Brussels, Belgium, is the most important center for EU activities.
Global cities are divided into 3 levels (alpha, beta, and gamma), which are further subdivided. The hierarchy of business services can also be used within countries (like the US). What are the first 3 factors used to rank/identify global cities:
- Economic Factors: Amount of corporation HQs, banks, law firms.
- Political Factors: Hosting HQs of international organizations and capitals of countries that play a leading role in international events.
- Cultural Factors: Renowned cultural institutions, influential media outlets, sports facilities, and educational institutions.
What are the last 3 factors used to rank/identify global cities:
- Infrastructure Factors: Major airport, health-care facilities, advanced communications systems. Technology actually hasn’t reduced the need for clustering of services in large cities, though it was expected to.
- Communications: Telegraph/telephone/computer makes it possible to communicate immediately with coworkers, clients, and customers.
- Transportation: Modern transportation reinforces the primary of global cities in the world economy (delivering people/inputs/products quickly).
Small countries exploit niches in the circulation of global capital by offering offshore financial services. Offshore centers provide what 2 important functions?
- Taxes: On income, profits, and capital gains are low or nonexistent. Companies there have tax-free status. The US loses a lot of $ each year because its companies conceal their assets in offshore tax havens.
- Privacy: Bank secrecy laws help individuals and businesses evade disclosure in their home countries.
What are other aspects of offshoring centers?
Corporations and people accused of malpractice (and wealthy people with a divorce) can protect their assets by storing them in offshore centers & short statutes of limitation protect offshore accounts from investigation. The privacy laws and low tax rates provide havens to tax dodges and other illegal schemes. The extent of illegal activities is unknown.
What are 4 offshore financial service centers that appear on MOST big lists (like the IMF, etc.)?
- Dependencies of the UK
- Dependencies of countries other than UK (Cook Island, Aruba, Macau).
- Independent island countries (Bahamas, Grenada, Nauru, Seychelles).
- Independent countries that aren’t islands (Switzerland, Belize, Bahrain).
What are back-office functions?
(AKA Business-process outsourcing). They include payroll management, insurance claims processing, & transcription work. It also includes centers for responding to billing or technical inquiries. Companies used to house their back-office staff in the same office building as their management staff (close to action for rapid turnaround of information). Rising rents have induced businesses to move back-office work to lower-rent buildings outside of downtown (usually suburbs or small towns). Telecommunications now eliminate the need for spatial proximity.
Selected LDCs have attracted back offices for what 2 reasons related to labor?
- Low wages: Most back-office workers earn way less than MDC workers doing the same jobs. However, it’s considered high-status work in LDCs and can attract better-educated, more-motivated employees in LDCs.
- Ability to speak English: Many LDCs offer lower wages than MDCs, but only a few LDCs possess a larger labor force fluent in English.
Why is English helpful for back-office workers?
Due to British and American colonial rule, any Asian countries (India and the Philippines) have many workers that know English, which is a strategic advantage in competing for back offices. It also helps to gaining a better understanding of preferences of American consumers. American Express and General Electric have extensive back-office facilities in those states. Many back office workers must work late at night (daytime in the US) & depend on public transportation, so sleeping or entertainment rooms may be provided at centers.
What does the process of an economic base in a settlement look like?
- New basic businesses attract new workers to a settlement
- The new basic business workers bring their families with them
- New nonbasic services are opened to meet the needs of new workers and their families.
-Ex: when a new car assembly plant opens, new supermarkets/restaurants and other consumer services soon follow. But the opposite doesn’t occur.
How can settlements in the US be classified? And what is the relationship between basic businesses in a settlement?
- By their distinctive collection of basic businesses (which, in many communities, are now in consumer/business/ public services instead of just manufacturing).
- If a settlement’s basic businesses are growing, they attract other basic/nonbasic businesses that can benefit from proximity. This leads to a cluster of businesses that reinforce each others’ growth (ex. Boston’s basic biotechnology sector has businesses that complement each other). Conversely, if basic businesses are shedding jobs (Detroit’s cars) other businesses may also decline.
Where do talented individuals cluster?
Individuals with special talents aren’t distributed uniformly among cities. Talented individuals promote economic innovation, start new businesses, and infuse the local economy with fresh ideas. They’re attracted to cities with the most financial opportunities (ex. in the US, tech jobs increased by 10% in most of the largest cities, mostly coming to 3 huge cities). For many talented individuals, the main enticement of a city is more cultural (the coolest places in the US, identified by Forbes based on 9 factors).
