With the partial unbundling or at least weakening of the national as a spatial unit due to privatization and deregulation and the associated strengthening of globalization, come conditions for the ascendance of other spatial units or scales. It is in this context that we see a rescaling of what are the strategic territories that articulate the new system. This has changed rather dramatically over the last decade as a result of privatization, deregulation, the opening up of national economies to foreign firms, and the growing participation of national economic actors in global markets. The international economic system was ensconced largely in this inter-state system.

But to a large extent these took place within the inter-state system, where the key articulators were national states. There have long been cross-border economic processes-flows of capital, labor, goods, raw materials, and tourists. One of the key properties of the current phase is the ascendance of information technologies and the associated increase in the mobility and liquidity of capital. Each phase in the long history of the world economy raises specific questions about the particular conditions that make it possible.

In global city regions: