Internal Spatial Logic of Polycentric Metropolitan Areas

Peter Hall (2001, 72; Hall and Pain 2006a) argues that if global cities are defined through external linkages, polycentric global-city regions should be defined in terms of their

corresponding internal linkages. These internal linkages are formed with regular commuting of people to their jobs and infrequent business meetings. Face to face contact is important in these internal linkages because professionals need to come together to interpret and exchange

information (Hall and Pain 2006a). These meeting places do not have to be in CBDs anymore, they can be scattered. Professionals can meet in suburban offices, or in airport and hotel lounges specifically designed for business meetings. Time-distance constraints are the most important factors in defining the new nodes of global business activity in metropolitan areas (Hall and Pain 2006a; Kloosterman and Lambregts 2001).

In literature, several scholars examined the internal spatial structure of the polycentric

metropolitan areas. Hartshorn and Muller (1989) focused on Atlanta, Hitz et al. (1994) examined Zurich, Keil and Ronneberger (1994) described Frankfurt, Gordon and Richardson (1986)

Most of these articles focused on subcenter formation through examining employment densities and clustering of service firms.

In Castell’s “Informational City”, intra- urban polycentricity is seen as clustering of economic activity in suburban centers as well as central business districts. Castells (1989) argue that centralized clusters in metropolitan areas are distinguished according to a functional hierarchy. Hall (2001) describes the resultant urban structure as polycentric and complex. Traditional CBD based on walking distance is still important for old-established informational services like banking and finance, but it is also being supplemented by a secondary CBD and other nodes. Peter Hall (2001) identifies six common types of nodes in the polycentric metropolitan form: traditional downtown centers, newer business centers developing in an old prestigious residential quarter such as Midtown Manhattan, internal edge cities developing in nearby old industrial or warehouse districts such as New York’s World Trade Center and Docklands in London, external edge cities located near transportation routes and nodes like airports, outermost edge cities for back office and R&D operations, and specialized sub centers for education, entertainment, and convention activities. In Hall’s classification secondary business centers and internal edge cities are carrying the same functions and facilities like CBD. Established businesses remain in CBD, but new companies tend to locate in more recent business districts. Outermost edge cities handle routine operations. Castell’s definition of intra-urban polycentricity is more like CBD vs. non- CBD according to APS locations. Thus, Hall (2001) elaborates Castell’s intra-urban

polycentricity definition by introducing other categories of business nodes that create the polycentric metropolis.

Traditional downtown centers, newer business districts, and internal edge cities are located close to each other within 3 or 4 miles distances. They are connected to each other with high-quality urban public transport such as PATH train linking New Jersey to World Trade Center. Outermost edge city locations extend beyond 20 miles or more from central cities and they are still

considered as a functional part of the polycentric metropolis (Hall and Pain 2006a). This polycentric structure of the major metropolitan areas also suggests that these areas have the nations’ most important enclaves of splintering urbanism such as logistics zones, back office enclaves, technopoles, and enclaves of international banking, finance, and business services with high-rise office complexes. These enclaves connect the urban economy to global economy (Graham and Marvin 2001).

Graham (1999, 934) argues that there are limits on how far the decentralization of higher- level services can currently go in the polycentric metropolitan areas. CBDs are still in demands for information-intensive APS firms. This is evident through a recent physical restructuring process in CBDs, caused by the new corporate financial architectures with large dealer floors that can accommodate modern electronic systems. By designing buildings with larger footplates for large financial firms the need for face to face contact is tried to be offset. However, financial firms cannot go very far from cores of global cities, they are dependent on the social and cultural environment of CBDs, so even if they move they will be clustered in a subcenter close to CBD. For example, we might see financial firms moving out from Wall Street to a “doughnut ring” around the edge of Manhattan (Longcore and Rees 1996 in Graham 1999, 934). Hitz et al. (1994, 177) argues that firm can optimize their locations within a metropolis by minimizing the costs for rent, transportation, and telecommunications, and by maximizing the efficiency of their

spatial structure. They can locate back offices in areas or establish new administrative centers in areas with lower land value. Kloosterman and Lambregts (2001, 723) also argue that infrequent contacts may be maintained over large distances, however to create a viable environment distances from CBDs may increase up to a certain level.

Keil and Ronneberger (1994, 138) conclude that today cities are multicentered, nodal, flexible, and global. Multiple centers result from the global division of labor in the city, nodality results from the hierarchical networking of these different centers, flexibilization refers to the shift from Fordist to Post-Fordist mode of productio n in the economy, and global explains the connectivity to the global economy. Centralization and decentralization, and concentration and

deconcentration, must not be seen as antagonistic poles but as different aspects of one complex regional growth process. What might look like disurbanization from central perspective is, in fact a dramatic increase in density anywhere else in the region (Keil and Ronneberger 1994, 146).

Talking about Frankfurt’s development Keil and Ronneberger (1994) demonstrate that

commercial and office developments lead to a distinct decentralized reconcentration on the urban periphery. This microgeographic shift from the core to the periphery that occurred has much to do with the locational decisions of the transnational firms which make the urban peripheries the growth centers of the most dynamic industries (Keil and Ronneberger 1994, 142). In Frankfurt, the continued dominance of downtown economy can be seen in the ongoing construction of new office buildings (Keil and Ronneberger 1994, 144). With the growing significance of the airport and other subcenters, real estate markets became more nodal in Frankfurt. The airport and other subcenters became the measure for land use and land prices in the urban agglomeration (Keil and

Ronneberger 1994, 149). Hitz et al. (1994) demonstrate a similar process in Zurich, where emergence of new peripheral business districts gave way to a polycentric city. In the case of Zurich, instead of forming a high-rise inner city skyline, the global economy shifted the growth outwards to peripheral locations.

Today as architects and planners talk about the global city space, discussions seem to converge on specific building types and land uses including high-rise office buildings, waterfront

developments, “packaged landscapes”, and fast modes of transportation between these nodes to create efficient access (Beauregard 1991b; Graham and Marvin 2001; Knox 1995; Sassen

2001b). In order to function efficiently and effectively, global flows insert physical channels into cities. These are the “transnational social spaces” that could be found anywhere in the world and thus must have consequences for the senses of space of those who use them (Sklair 2006, 22) . These channels start from transportation hubs like airports, continue with highways,

underground, or railroad transportation that leads to centralized areas, which can easily be identified with high-rise office buildings, corporate chain hotels, water-front developments, luxury loft apartments, international chain restaurants, and shopping centers with brand- name stores from all over the world (Graham and Marvin 2001). This is the space where each city is exhibiting its economic and cultural power through glamorous design of its built environment (Newman and Thornley 2005).

Similar to Frankfurt, in the US, as metropolitan areas expanded, construction of buildings that cater to the service economy and global business elites also increased (Scott, et al. 2001). Between 1980 and 1990, a construction boom took place in the US. The new construction was

not confined to traditional centers; rather it had a polycentric pattern (Scott, et al. 2001). Beauregard (1991b, 91) captures this process in the built environment as “the high-density central city with its low-density residential suburban ring has been replaced by a multimodal, sprawling built environment with the central city less and less distinguishable from its

competitive outer cities”.

In this chapter we have seen how changes in global economy and improvements in information, communication, and transport technologies affected metropolitan areas. Monocentric city has been replaced with polycentric urban areas, in which advanced producer services are the key economic agents. Any change in urban structure is always reflected in the built environment. In this case, clustering of service firms in different subcenters resulted in increased densities in these areas, which enabled the development of high-rise office building clusters.

In development of subcenters, like in other parts of the capitalist city, business interests have been the priority (Fainstein 1994). Office buildings in these centers are speculative

developments. The main aim of developers is to attract business elites and capital associated with this group for profit (Hall and Hubbard 1998; Kotler, et al. 2002; Philo and Kearns 1993). Thus, creating imaginative urban landscapes that are technologically advanced and that will cater to the demands and life styles of the business elite is the number one priority (Sklair 2006).

In terms of global cities, competition is fiercer because the flow of capital is higher generating higher profits. Thus, what we see in the development of global business activity nodes is flagship high-rise office projects commissioned to famous architects and developed by

transnational development firms. Development and current trends of these commercial

megastructures best explain the current character of the capitalist economy (Crilley 1993) and they will be discussed in the next section.