The Fourth Edition of Cities in a World Economy shows how certain characteristics of our turn-of-the-millennium flows of money, information and people have led to the emergence of a new social formation: global cities. These developments give new meaning to such fixtures of urban sociology as the centrality of place and the importance of geography in our social world.New to the Fourth Edition: new chapter (8) analysing the challenges and vulnerabilities facing major cities in terms of three major challenges: (1) the environment, (2) global financial crisis, and (3) asymmetric war new section in chapter 3 on global migrations new section in Chapter 4 on comparing global cities presents three new case studies in Chapter 5: (1) comparing Shanghai and Hong Kong, (2) the Gulf States, and (3) IstanbulKey Features: takes a multidisciplinary approach to urban sociology, supported by global examples examines the impact of global processes on the social structure of cities, increasing students' world awareness strikes an ideal balance between maintaining academic rigor and employing new and innovative concepts discusses in Chapter 7 a unique perspective on the highly gendered and unequal nature of the global city, and how it forces the underprivileged to live a dangerous and unpredictable life on global survival circuits