Global Cities: A New Hierarchy and Critical Assessment of the Post-Colonial Legacy

With the increasing human migration to cities, the relevance of global cities at the internationallevel is becoming more evident. Nonetheless, a concrete definition of what is needed for a city tobecome global has not been formulated. The existing system that identifies cities as global is highlyembedded in the colonial past and perpetuates a hierarchical system born from the colonial legacy.Therefore, this research paper intersects the significant factors that indexes utilize to evaluate a cityin terms of its global output and highlights the relevant connection of the factors to the coloniallegacy of yore. The social normative conditioning of the citizenry inhabiting these urban centersand the discrepancy in city resiliency byproduct of a disparity in resource availability. Furthermore,the inequality in resource allocation has created a perpetuation in the inability to become resilientto modern transnational problems and transboundary issues, fostering the disparity betweenemerging cities and global cities. Finally, this paper seeks to aid in the post-colonial discourse of theinternational relations discipline and calls for a conjoint interdisciplinary approach to emancipatethe classification of cities from the contemporary colonial hierarchical system.