Hamburg, a global city? A case study on Hamburg's producer services and cultural industries

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Economic Geography, grade: 1,3, University of Twente , language: English, abstract: This bachelor thesis examines a city's interlinkage in the globalizing processes and aims at answering the research question: To what extent can Hamburg be qualified as a Global City in terms of its localization of global producer services and cultural industries? Global cities are defined as local nodes of the corporate service sector and the cultural economy, which are associated in a global network. Following this, an in-depth analysis of Hamburg's performance on the economic and cultural dimension will be provided in order to clarify its global city status. It will be innovative in two respects: Firstly, it will provide an incorporation of both dimensions (economic and culture) into its analysis in order to provide a more comprehensive and less biased estimate of a metropolis' global city status, a practice that has not been conducted in the literature so far. Secondly, it will apply this dualistic approach to the city of Hamburg. Even though it is the second largest city in Germany (according to population numbers), Hamburg has not yet been subject of detailed investigation by global city researcher. In a SWOT-analysis the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the producer service sector and the cultural economy are outlined in order to determine their basic situation; the sectors' integration in the global networks are discussed mainly on basis of the Globalization and World Cities Studies Research Network (GaWC) dataset and the data generated by Kratke (2010). By linking the local conditions with the global perspective on both sectors, the not fully developed functional status of Hamburg as a global city becomes clear; it is a global city 'in the second row'. Derived from this finding, recommendations for a better involvement in the global networks are provided.