‘New Labor and Urban Bottom’ Hypothesis

A Case of Global City in Developing Country, Metro Manila

Abstract

  The city of a developing country has been transformed drastically due to the economic globalization. The transformation of a developing country’s city has been interpreted with two views up to now：On the one hand, it has been interpreted as the extension of the image of over-urbanized city based on the theory of over-urbanization; On the other hand, it has been interpreted as the extension of the image of European and American global cities based on the theory of global city. However, those theories have not explained the transformation of a developing country’s city sufficiently. This article aims to apply the theory of global city to the developing country’s city and construct a hypothesis to analyze from the front line its transformation by taking Metro Manila, Philippines, as an example of a developing country’s global city and by focusing on its urban bottom. It is the hypothesis of a global city and its urban bottom. The hypothesis is composed of five sub-hypotheses：First, it is that global cities have appeared not only in the developed countries but also in the developing countries; Second, it is that the service-related jobs catering the business sector and the new middle class have increased in the global cities; Third, it is that the informalization of labor has gone forward due to the economic globalization; Fourth, it is that the informalization of labor has produced the new labor and/or new laborer, and the new poverty and/or new poor; Finally, it is that the new laborer and the new poor constitute the urban bottom which is theoretically distinct from the urban poor as used in the theory of over-urbanization. This article aims to further discuss these sub-hypotheses and to insist on their realistic validity.